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23/6/2005

Michel Majerus

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

What looks good today may not look good tomorrow

When Michel Majerus passed away in 2002, at the age of 35, he left behind an impressive oeuvre. He did not limit himself to two-dimensional surfaces, but created dynamic, painted installations which surround the viewer. A series of retrospective exhibitions featuring his large scale, three-dimensional installations, wall paintings, a selection of his paintings from the period 1994-2002 and video sculptures began in Kunsthaus Graz, where it was to be seen from February 12 to May 16, 2005. In variations the retrospective travels to Amsterdam, where it opens on June 24, and subsequently to Hamburg, Hanover and Luxembourg.

Majerus, who spent his working life primarily between Berlin and Los Angeles, had his breakthrough in the mid 1990s as one of the most striking and talented painters of his generation. The title of the exhibition, ‘what looks good today may not look good tomorrow’, is borrowed from one of his works, and refers to the world of advertising, corporate design, comic strips and computer games, from which he drew considerable inspiration.

Majerus’ oeuvre consists of an accumulation of citations, styles and visual motifs, not just from popular culture but also from art history, particularly from Minimal and Pop Art. He made no distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’; for him, Super Mario and Toy Story were just as important as Warhol, Richter, Basquiat and De Kooning. In his eyes all visual media were equal, and should be shown in relationship with each other.

Traditional artistic concepts such as authenticity and originality did little for Majerus. ‘My work functions precisely around the fact that every claim to “authentic” culture and ways of living is an illusion,’ he himself once commented with regard to his work, which can be situated in the popular culture of the 1990s.

Stedelijk Museum CS
Post CS building, 2nd storey, Oosterdokskade 5, Amsterdam
Open: daily from 10:00 am through 6:00 p.m.

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