Michel Majerus
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Michel Majerus (b. 1967 in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, d. 2002) was a key figure amongst a new generation of painters, and was included in a number of solo and group exhibitions in Europe and North America. Majerus lived and worked in Berlin until his death in an airplane crash in Luxembourg in 2002. His work has been seen in the realm of revival of painting of the mid-1990s, though specifically his painting is in relationship with electronic civility and digital media.
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[edit] Exhibition "Painting Pictures"
Although painting appears far from the issue of new media, a lot of painters seem to be involved in it in the mid-1990s. The exhibition “Painting Pictures” at the Kunstmuseum of Wolfsburg (Germany) in 2003 was the confirmation of this as a new genre of painting and of Majerus as a key figure, whose memoriam is dedicated the catalogue. Other painters represented in “Painting Pictures” beyond Majerus himself are for instance Takashi Murakami, Sarah Morris, Franz Ackermann, Matthew Ritchie, Torben Giehler and Erik Parker.
[edit] Majerus' painting style
From this perspective Majerus’ paintings appear to be particularly representative. His canvases are configured as mental spaces, more than physical. His paintings are places of condensation of unaware contemporary signs, belonging to pop and youth universe, and the desperate attempt of the artist to use his own free will on them. Pop culture icons, such as videogames heroes and signs and symbols coming from the realm of electronic music, skateboard culture, gadgets and sneakers, occupy basically the space.
What happens over them is that these images are interrupted by elements of dirtiness, erased zones and unfinished parts that can be considered as interferences. Deeply, we’ll argue that these interferences assume the meaning of sabotage, where sabotage is intended to be a subversive act to prevent or lessen the faithful reproduction of the nature on canvas. In this sense, we can find a relationship with the practice of sampling in music. For Majerus, unwanted images from the contemporary pop culture can only be recontextualized, or simply altered. It is not possible to put those away, but maybe erase them (operation anyway visible) or modify their shape.
The idea of sampling in painting is a practice as old as the history of painting itself and become evident with the 20th-century practice of collage and readymade. But what is new in Majerus' work is that those existing images are not cut out of the world, but recreated maintaining their original resemblance. New painters are still interested in assuming the Nature, where nature has been digitalized and lost its integrity, assuming the shape of composition of fragments.
