Marcel Broodthaers created "Model: The Pipe" using vacuum-formed plastic painted to explore the relationship between representation and the object itself. The work exemplifies his conceptual practice of interrogating how images function and what constitutes art, drawing on the legacy of Magritte's famous pipe painting. By rendering a pipe in industrial plastic rather than through traditional painting, Broodthaers shifts attention from illusionistic representation to the materiality of the artwork itself.