The Broodthaers Society of America presents the second of three lectures on the theme of Fiction, Trust, and Surveillance in the work of Marcel Broodthaers. The lecture will take place at the Hauser & Wirth Bookshop and Roth Bar, 548 West 22nd Street, New York.

On Tuesday, March 28, Flemish Civil & Environmental Engineer Sigrid Adriaenssens will present and discuss the “shell zeitgeist” that took place in architecture throughout the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s and perfectly coincided with Marcel Broodthaers’ adult life. In concept and material, the shell is a motif that runs throughout Broodthaers' work as national symbol, hollow accretion, and institutional metaphor. Adriaenssens’ lecture will draw parallels between Broodthaers’ poetic use of shells and the concrete structural innovations that were unfolding all around him. 

Indeed, Broodthaers himself was a hired hand during the construction of the numerous concrete shell architectures featured at the Brussels World’s Fair, Expo 1958. A previously unpublished reminiscence by Broodthaers on his experience as a construction worker, as well as a short essay he published on the science fiction connotations of the Atomium, the centerpiece of Expo 58, will be available at the lecture.

Sigrid Adriaenssens runs the Structural Form-finding Lab at Princeton University, where she is an associate professor. Her work focuses on form-finding techniques and structural optimization with a specialty in cast concrete shells. Recent research has expanded into experimentation with sustainable materials, mobile structures, and pre-stressed tension structures. She earned a PhD at the Centre for Lightweight Structures, University of Bath, England, in 2000. 

The Broodthaers Society of America (BSA) promotes new interpretations of the work of Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers in the political and cultural context of the United States. While its primary mission is to promote scholarship on his work as a poet and artist, the BSA also encourages using his oeuvre as a creative jumping off point for wider social and aesthetic explorations.

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