It's cool man

  • 1998
  • Michel Majerus
  • Lacquer and silscreen on aluminium
  • 300 x 548 x 22 cm
Composed of three superimposed aluminium panels covered in lacquer and screen prints, the piece projects itself into the space. From front to back, there is a canvas in the shape of a stylised flower, a painting evoking Abstract Expressionism, and a minimalist monochrome. Majerus's painting practice absorbed multiple influences.

© Michel Majerus Estate, 1998. Photo © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Marc Domage

Hangs

Michel Majerus

Michel Majerus’ career was brief but prolific; he was part of the burgeoning German artistic scene after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

It came to an abrupt end when he was killed in a plane crash in 2002. Referencing artists such as de Kooning, Warhol and Stella, his strong pop-centred work references graffiti, advertising, comic strips and video games. Often fluorescent and large, his paintings draw on the aesthetic of assemblage. The critic John Kelsey described the artist in these terms: “Ironically, his destiny was to sample and appropriate the entire history of art […] before himself becoming a legitimate historical reference. But, alive, he was undoubtedly more like a Super Mario moving through history like the levels of a video game, flattening content on the screen of his work, even ‘collaborating’ with deceased artists.”

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