Marcel Broodthaers

Daguerre’s Soup

1975

Not on display

Artist: Marcel Broodthaers 1924–1976
Original title: La Soupe de Daguerre
Medium: Screenprint and 12 photographs, colour, on paper
Dimensions: Support: 530 x 520 mm
frame: 540 x 525 x 30 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1977
Reference: P07214

Display caption

The title of this work refers to Louis Daguerre, one of the nineteenth-century inventors of photography. The soup concocted in his name is represented by a chart of its ingredients. However, these ingredients are themselves photographs, whether of 'real' vegetables or of fish made of tissue paper. A label presents the work as if it were a museum exhibit, implying that it belongs to the distant past, perhaps even to Daguerre's era. Although the soup can never be eaten, the photographic images survive in a state of pristine freshness long after 'real' vegetables would have rotted away.

Gallery label, September 2004

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