Carte politique du monde, c. 1970

We tend to assume that maps give us objective information, forgetting that they were made by humans and are constantly modified. To demonstrate that all cartographic representations are selective and somehow subjective, Marcel Broodthaers made a series of works using world maps. At times he slightly alters the dimensions of certain countries, while at others he incorporates words that ‘intervene’ in our reading of the maps. In Carte politique du monde, Broodthaers takes a political map of the world and mounts it on a black background, captioning it with the word Modèle inscribed in gold letters. Influenced by René Magritte, who was one of his references, the artist reminds us that all maps are models, i.e. selective representations. While they may be useful, they are inevitably simplified and distorted.