En lisant la Lorelei. Wie ich die Lorelei gelesen habe.

Munich / Paris.: Galerie Heiner Friedrich / Yvon Lambert., 1975. Publisher's wrappers. Small brown stain to upper spine.. (32 x 24.6 cm).. pp. (28). En lisant la Lorelei was installed as part of Broodthaers’ legendary “Eloge de sujet” show at the Kunstmuseum Basel in November 1974. This artist book was published as a result the following year. Published in an edition of 116 copies, the book was intended to be signed by Broodthaers, but due to his untimely death the copies are signed with the estate stamp: “Estate Marcel Broodthaers”. Includes a foreword by the artist and the text of Heinrich Heine’s poem “Die Lorelei”, in German and French on opposite pages. Illustrations consist of seven full page facsimiles of excerpts from German and French stock exchange tables, six pages of drawings incorporating decals for commercial artists, and six pages of reproductions of 19th century graphic images of the Lorelei rock and vicinity. In the romantic Rhine Valley near the town of St. Goarshausen, a siren named Lorelei was said to bewitch sailors from her granite rock, causing them to ground their boats or lose control of them and sink. Broodthaers makes use of traditional elements of Rhine iconography of the 19th century. This includes lithographed views of the representation of the river course and the rock itself. They are contrasted by modern illustrations taken from the field of commercial art of the early 1970s, which are then supplemented further with drawings. The text is equally a mixture of the old and the contemporary - whilst Heine’s original Lorelei poem of 1822 is translated into French, there are also modern newspaper clippings from Le Monde and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, concerning the stock exchange and modern gold markets. [Jamar - Marcel Broodthaers - Complete Graphic Work & Books 44; M. Werner - Marcel Broodthaers, Catalogue of the books 1957-1975, no. 21].