Michel Majerus

Michel Majerus (June 9, 1967 – November 6, 2002) was a Luxembourgish artist who combined painting with digital media in his work.[1] He lived and worked in Berlin until his untimely death in a plane crash in November 2002.[2]

Michel Majerus
in Berlin 1996
Born(1967-06-09)9 June 1967
Esch-sur-Alzette
Died6 November 2002(2002-11-06) (aged 35)
Niederanven, near Luxembourg City
NationalityLuxembourgish

His work was featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions in Europe and North America, most notably the "Pop Reloaded" exhibition in Los Angeles.

Life and early works
"if we are dead, so it is", Installation view, Köllnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
Installation view: controlling the moonlight maze, neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Majerus was born in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg in 1967. In 1986, Majerus began to study at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, graduating in 1992.

Painting was Majerus’s preferred medium of expression, but his creative horizon extended to many aspects of popular culture, from computer games, digital imagery, film, television, and pop music to trademarks and corporate logos.[3] His paintings' stylistic quotations include excerpts from Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Jean-Michel Basquiat,[4] video games and other pop-culture sources.[5] He did not limit himself to two-dimensional surfaces, but created dynamic, painted installations which surround the viewer.[6] In if you are dead, so it is (2000), Majerus covered the interior surface of a skateboarders' half-pipe.[7]

After moving to Los Angeles in 2000 through the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), an academic exchange, Majerus began work on a series of thirty large-format paintings incorporating digital media and animated videos. Completed in Berlin the following year, the series eventually comprised over thirty works.[8] Nine of these works would eventually become the "Pop Reloaded" exhibition in Los Angeles. "Pop Reloaded" emphasised the visual confusion of urban landscapes and the scale and domination imposed by freeway billboards and office towers. It drew on works by Cy Twombly, Mark Rothko and Gerhard Richter in inscribing logos and detail on the dull greys and blacks of a cityscape. The paintings were accompanied by a video of a constantly changing image of Majerus' signature, to illustrate the idea of celebrity as a constantly changing concept.[9]

Majerus was working on an exhibition entitled "Project Space" for Tate Liverpool when he died.[10]

Exhibitions

Majerus' artwork first came to international attention in 1996 with an exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Stuttgart, and then with subsequent exhibitions in Munster and Dundee ('Colour Me Blind! - Painting In The Age of Computer Games And Comics', 2000).[11] In 1996 the Kunsthalle Basel organized a mid-career museum retrospective.[12]

In 1998, Majerus was invited to participate in Manifesta 2.[13] He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1999, where he covered the facade of the main Italian Pavilion with a mural he designed.[14] Since his death, several European museums have organized exhibitions of his work including the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2003), the Tate Liverpool (2004), the Kunsthaus Graz (2005), and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2011).[15]

A posthumous exhibition of Majerus' works was featured at the Kunstmuseum of Wolfsburg (Germany) in 2003. Entitled “Painting Pictures”, the exhibition was a celebration of Majerus' genre and was dedicated to his memory. Other painters represented in “Painting Pictures” included Takashi Murakami, Sarah Morris, Franz Ackermann, Matthew Ritchie, Torben Giehler and Erik Parker. Commencing in 2005, approximately two hundred of Majerus' works have been displayed as the "European Retrospective" travelling exhibition. The exhibition was a collaboration between the Majerus family and the Galerie Neugerriemschneider, Berlin. It included works usually displayed at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, the Kunsthaus - Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz and from private collections throughout the world (Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Great-Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Portugal, USA)..

Death

In November 2002, Majerus was killed aboard Luxair Flight 9642 while travelling from Berlin to Luxembourg.[16]

References
  1. "Project Space: Michael Majerus. Pop Reloaded". Euromuse.net. February 2004. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-07-30.
  2. Project Space: Michel Majerus, January 24 – April 18, 2004 Tate Liverpool.
  3. Project Space: Michel Majerus, January 24 – April 18, 2004 Tate Liverpool.
  4. Dorothy Spears (October 25, 2013), Galleries as the Art World’s Leading Indicators New York Times.
  5. Michel Majerus, February 8 - April 19, 2014 Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
  6. Michel Majerus: "what looks good today may not look good tomorrow", June 24 - October 16, 2005 Archived February 3, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
  7. Michel Majerus, May 31 - September 23, 2012 Centre d'arts plastiques contemporains de Bordeaux.
  8. Project Space: Michel Majerus, January 24 – April 18, 2004 Tate Liverpool.
  9. Project Space: Michel Majerus, January 24 – April 18, 2004 Tate Liverpool.
  10. Project Space: Michel Majerus, January 24 – April 18, 2004 Tate Liverpool.
  11. "Exhibition Archive". www.dca.ednet.co.uk. Dundee Contemporary Arts. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  12. Michel Majerus, February 8 - April 19, 2014 Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
  13. artists Manifesta Biennale
  14. Michel Majerus, February 8 - April 19, 2014 Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
  15. Michel Majerus, February 8 - April 19, 2014 Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
  16. Morrison, Donald. "A Coming-Out Party." TIME. Wednesday 28 February 2007. Retrieved on 1 November 2009.
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