What’s that camel doing near the Royal Palace? A strange parade courtesy Pierre Leguillon, or: Teatrino Palermo on the move

I wonder what the Belgian king would have made of it, would he have opened a window of the Royal Palace, Saturday morning. A camel, carrying a puppet theatre? Near the palace, in the streets of Brussels? Many passers-by were wondering the same thing. What? It was a strange parade indeed, set up by Wiels, (SIC) and French (Brussels-based) artist Pierre Leguillon, in the frame of his Museum of Mistakes exhibition at Wiels (through February 22). The camel is a reference to the camel Marcel Broodthaers put in the lobby of the Palais de Beaux-Arts (Brussels) in 1974. The puppet theatre is a copy (courtesy Pierre Leguillon) of a miniature theatre made by Blinky Palermo (a friend of Broodthaers) in 1964. And where did the camel start his tour with the so-called Teatrino Palermo, on Saturday? Right: Rue de la Pepinière, where Broodthaers used to live, and also the place where the Belgian artist opened his alternative Musée d’art moderne in 1968. And where did the camel go to? Rue Ravenstein, where the theatre was exhibited in 1988, at Marie-Puck Broodthaers’ gallery. Yep: toying with references, concepts such as reproduction, re-enactment, movement and means of presentation… that’s Leguillon.