Michel Majerus

Throughout his relatively short career, Michel Majerus (1967, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg – 2002, Niederanven, Luxembourg) was prolific, producing over forty painted installations. His work contains a myriad of references from art history (from colour field painting to Pop Art) and popular culture (from comics to electronic music). These quotations are layered and collaged, creating visually saturated compositions that recall the flux of images of the then-burgeoning internet. Majerus’ use of these techniques, that combined elements from computer software and video games, was radical for a painter working in the 1990s.

Untitled (Violet) (1997) is a non-figurative, gestural work that appears initially to refer to the language of abstract expressionism. Yet the area of pictorial action is confined to the upper left corner of the canvas, drawing attention to the splashes of paint, and revealing the process of painting. The ‘splash’ motif, which is recurrent in Majerus’ work, alludes to the frantic pace of our modern world and to the pace of visual acceleration in the information age. This piece, which is deceptively impulsive in appearance, is the result of a carefully thought out and premeditated execution. What Majerus presents with irony to the viewer is not an abstract painting but the image of an abstract painting, in which spontaneity is staged.

SINNMASCHINE (1997) comprises a metallic floor that fans out in a quarter-circle with seven painted panels placed along its curved edge, marking a change in scale from Majerus’ previous work. Though not fully immersive, SINNMASCHINE (sense machine) summons the visitor’s hearing and sight. The title references The Man-Machine, the 1978 album of the German band Kraftwerk, while the floor recalls a stage or a dancefloor on which the visitor’s steps resonate. The panels are at once the backdrop and the central element. The six monochrome panels in orange, white, pink and blue form a gradient that resembles the test pattern of analogue television. In contrast, the seventh panel displays a dense iconography: a portrait of Kraftwerk merges with dripped paint, a reproduction of a clipping from the Financial Times newspaper which features Elmo from Sesame Street, and a depiction of a Nike sneaker. Blending the vocabularies of the mass media, the work portrays the homogenisation of taste in a globalised capitalist economy.