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 Michel Majerus addresses the subject of art according to an aspect which is seldom expressed, but which is generally to be considered. It has to do with the fundamental equipment, the archive of perceived and partly, at least, intensively loved images which represent the pre-history of every individual artistic production. It is a sign of our times that such a work has become possible: we are aware of art history and its heroes, and know with a retrospective view to the modern and its genesis. Majerus adapts history and reproduces its visual occurrences: the liberation from artistic expression, the making autonomous of the effects of form and color, the radical all-over, the concept of pure painting. At the same time, he quotes the historical co-travellers and opponents: the print media, the aesthetics of consumption, the trademark. Majerus lets both worlds collide and, at the same time, forget their confrontation: all media are equal, each one is an occurrence. Majerus possesses an extraordinarily vast and precise image memory. Only in exceptional cases does he copy from the original (Andy Warhol’s Sixtine Madonna or an object from Frank Stella’s Cones and Pillars Series); for all other paintings, he indeed draws from memory: the atmospheric color compositions of Willem de Kooning, the smooth surfaces of Barnett Newman or Ellsworth Kelly, as well as the incisive contours of animated cartoon figures.
In the series of small square works, the continuous numeration (presently until No. 25) becomes a synonym for constantly changing and freely available images – not only painted images, but those serially produced and multiplied by screenprinting. Parallel to this, the employment of text gained in importance. It offers references to the critical context of today’s artistic production, bringing concepts, demands and postulations into the game which art today subjects itself to. In this way, he produces references and referents which engage in dialogue with the images. “For the 21st Century” is written over a portrait (of the Techno guru Sven Väth). The demand “avoid anything that looks like you’ve tried too hard” is the heading for a room which contains, among other things, a newly designed de Kooning painting – and at a distance to this, Majerus added a homage to the quoted: “anything looks like you’ve tried to avoid this”. In Majerus’ strategy of appropriation, there are no traces of a lament, but rather of an enormous dynamism. One knows the images he produces, yet the fact that they are being produced anew frees them from their original authors and tells of the driving force of an observer. In German, there is a simple expression for this: “Haben wollen!”, or “wanting to have”.
Michel Majerus
- Born 1967 in Esch
- 1986 -92 Studium an der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart
- Lives and works in Berlin
Scholarship and Prices:
- 1993 Stipendium der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart
- 1998 Arbeitsstipendium der Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur, Berlin
Solo exhibitions (Selection)
- 1998 Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athen (GR)
- 1997 Space Safari, Anders Tornberg Gallery, Lund (S)
qualified, Galleria Gio Marconi, Mailand (I)
Produce-Reduce-Reuse, Galerie Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe
- 1996 Aesthetic Standard, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (A)
Monika Sprüth Galerie, Köln
Fertiggestellt zur Zufriedenheit aller, die Bedenken haben, neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (CH)*
The Museum of Modern Art Syros, Kykladen (GR)
- 1994 neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Group exhibitions (Selection)
- 1998 Malerei, Galerie Karlheinz Meyer, Karlsruhe
manifesta 2, Luxemburg (L)*
Das Jahrhundert der künstlerischen Freiheit. 100 Jahre Wiener Secession, Wien (A)*
Tell Me a Story: Narration in Contemporary Painting and Photography, Le Magasin, Grenoble (F)*
- 1997 Topping Out, Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn*
Imbiß, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Stuttgart
- 1996 Alle Neune, ACC Galerie, Weimar
Wunderbar, Hamburger Kunstverein, Hamburg; Kunstraum, Wien (A)
something changed, Galerie Klosterfelde, Hamburg
SammlungVolkmann: Faustrecht der Freiheit, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen; Kunstsammlung Gera, Gera
Malerei III, 1996, Monika Sprüth Galerie, Köln
- 1995 Under Thirty, Galerie Metropol, Wien (A)*
[Gunda Förster] [Hans Hemmert] [Sabine Hornig] [York der Knöfel] [Michel Majerus]
[Antje Majewski] [Olaf Nicolai] [Manfred Pernice] [Daniel Richter]
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