Broodthaers's deep attraction to the forms of the outmoded has been remarked upon by his various critics. His system of references focuses mainly on the nineteenth century, be they to the Ingres or Courbets in the first manifestation of his museum, or to the example of Baudelaire and Mallarmé for his books and exhibitions, or to the panorama and the winter garden as his models for social spaces. In fact, as Benjamin Buchloh has commented, this "altogether dated aura of nineteenth century bourgeois culture that many of his works seem to bring to mind might easily seduce the viewer into dismissing his work as being obviously obsolete and not at all concerned with the presuppositions of contemporary art."
But what Crimp is suggesting is that the power Walter Benjamin invested in the outmoded should be acknowledged in the Broodthaers's use of it - as in his assumption of the form of the "true" collector. This was a power Benjamin hoped his own prospecting in the historical grounds of the nineteenth century forms would be able to release. Writing of his own Paris Arcades project, he said: "We are here constructing an alarm clock that awakens the kitsch of the past century into 're-collection.'" That Benjamin's archaeology was retrospective was a function of the fact that he believed its view could open up only from the site of obsolescence. As he remarked: "Only in extinction is the [true] collector comprehended."
Rosalind Krauss - "A Voyage on the North Sea", p.42
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