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Item: Optimistic Box N°1
1968
Object, 11 x 11 x 11 cm.
Materials: wood (beech), lock, labels, 1 stone
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. M00006).
Other works and editions that afford an enlightening peek into a world structured by such an anarchic sense of humor are the so-called “Optimistic Boxes”, the first of which, from the fabled year 1968, contains a pavement stone: an inscription on the outside of Optimistic Box Nr. 1 (1968) reads “thank God for modern weapons”, countered by an inscription that states “we don’t throw stones at each other anymore” – yet the paving stone was effectively that year’s most popular weapon.
Optimistic Box n°2 from 1969 contains Filliou’s scathing view of modern marriage; yet another, later work, A More Curious Invention of the Gaga Yogi (1976) consists of a box containing hundreds of thumbnails inside, and sporting one lonely, hammered nail outside.
Optimistic Box N°3 "So much the better if you can't play chess" on the outside and "You won't imitate Marcel Duchamp" on the inside. Optimistic Box N° 4 and 5 is one object, it is about the overall importance of money. The object is a pink piggy bank, on the one side is written "one thing I learned since I was born" on the other side : "that I must die since I was born".
Media
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Robert Filliou — The Secr...
13 October 2016 - 22 January 2017.
In the coming years, M HKA will dedicate a series of exhibitions to key figures of experimental art in the second half of the twentieth centu -

Visite
03 April 2009 - 10 September 2009.
No description. -

The collection XX: JUBILE...
29 June 2007 - 18 November 2007.
No description. -

Meeting Points 7 — Ten Th...
25 October 2013 - 16 February 2014.
Meeting Points is a multidisciplinary contemporary arts festival aimed at the contextualised presentation of art from the Arab world, organis
Ensembles
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Optimistic Box n°3
Robert Filliou, Optimistic Box n°3, 1969. Object, wooden box, labels, 6 x 12 x 2,9 cm.
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Boîte optimiste n°2 - Viv...
Robert Filliou, Boîte optimiste n°2 - Vive Le Mariage, 1969. Object, wooden box, labels, picture, 9 x 12 x 2.5 cm.
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Optimistic Box n°4 and 5
Robert Filliou, Optimistic Box n°4 and 5, 1968-1981. Object, paper, ceramics, 9.5 x 16.5 x 11 cm.



