Michel Majerus 31.05 / 23.09.2012

For its main summer show, the CAPC programs the first retrospective in France. Only french museum detaining a monumental work of the Luxemburg born artist in its collection, the CAPC CAPC will present a consequent selection of installations musée d’artd'art contemporaincontemporain and paintings in its nave, of which the gigantic and de BordeauxBordeaux gliding skateboard ramp if you are dead, so it is. “I’m fascinated by the idea of doing something without being sure of what it will become, and without anyone else being sure what it will become. I will never know, and no one else will know: that is how I think of art”. Michel Majerus

The brief span of Michel Majerus’ career This is the first solo exhibition of Michel coincides with two major revolutions, one Majerus’ work in France. Produced in technological, the other political. The artist’s collaboration with the Kunstmuseum in work reached its creative peak and made its , this retrospective will gather 35 mark on the international art scene in 1996, works produced by the artist between 1996 when the Internet was emerging as a new and 2002, as well as two major installations: phenomenon. His death in a tragic plane crash - The monumental work Reminder (1998), occurred one year after the political turmoil which was added to our collection in 2007 caused by the 9/11 attacks in 2001. (on deposit from the Centre national des arts In the space of six years, these two revolutions plastiques). It is the first time since its creation profoundly transformed the socio-cultural and in 1998 for Manifesta in Luxemburg that this economic parameters of our civilization, giving amazing work can be shown again, thanks to birth to a new era we commonly refer to as the huge size of the main hall of the CAPC. “globalization”. - With if you are dead, so it is (2000) It brought with it mobility, polycentrism, Majerus has covered the interior surface information streams, new networks, social of a skateboarders’ half-pipe. It will be diversity, and hybridization. Nothing is reconstructed running the length of the 164- “remote” or “peripheral” any more, power foot nave of the CAPC. Visitors will be able to hubs no longer have physical locations, glide through on foot or on roller blades… and social time patterns have been desynchronized. In the space of a few years, This show reflects the museum’s determination Michel Majerus sensed and embraced these to present the work of a generation of artists, new parameters and used them to develop curators and critics who have developed new new aesthetic paradigms: painting as a space idioms and display methods that echo the for navigation and circulation, the canvas’s changing cultural, social, and economic context surface used like a screen, the boundless of art. availability of images, the simultaneity and heterogeneity of signs and forms, the Curator importance of communication technology in Charlotte Laubard human interaction, and so on. Catalog Michel Majerus The openness and permeability of Texts by Nicolas Bourriaud, Heike-Karin Majerus’work reflects its genuine kinship Föll, Ulrike Groos, Joseph Kosuth, Charlotte with Pop Art. Its contemporary thrust owes Laubard, Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen much to the artist’s relentless concern with Eds. DISTANZ, Berlin ; Kunstmuseum, the question of style, rooted in his awareness Stuttgart ; CAPC musée d’art contemporain, of living in an entirely ‘designed’ world Bordeaux, 2011 in which all entities, ideas, and physical French-English, 224 pages, color illustrations, manifestations are produced via standardized 23,5 x 28,5 cm communication tools whose visual identity is ISBN: 978-3-942405-56-0 tightly controlled. Majerus decided to refrain Price: 44 ¤ from making choices (of style), remaining faithful to this fundamental, difficult and often The exhibition Michel Michel is organized misunderstood relativism until the end, as in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum, shown in the darker, more anxious paintings Stuttgart he made in 2002, shortly before his death.

Couverture Michel Majerus, Pathfinder, 2002. Impression numérique sur vinyl, 380 x 290 x 3,5 cm © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Michel Majerus : Screenshots Nicolas Bourriaud

When discussing Frank Stella’s painting, and I was astounded by the large scale of his Robert Rosenblum writes that it covers nearly works and the aggressive, Pop-influenced all essential painterly problems of its time.1 colors. It all seemed far removed from the The same could also be said, however, of timid drawings created immediately after the compressed, synthetic work of Michel his studies at the Kunstakademie Stuttgart. Majerus—in spite of an extremely short career With astonishing audacity, he now made the that came to an abrupt end in a plane crash exhibition space entirely his own. From 1996 in fall 2002, when he was merely thirty-four to 1999, Michel Majerus designed his first years old. It was an ironic twist of fate that the major shows, starting with the Kunsthalle accident occurred in the country of his birth; Stuttgart up to the monumental Wall Drawing, no stranger to wanderlust, Majerus, a man who commissioned by Harald Szeemann for the would introduce himself as a “Berlin artist” facade of the international pavilion at the and had just returned from a several-month Biennale di Venezia. Shortly before this first stay in the USA, would have been amused by high point in his career, I had invited him this symbolic act of coming full circle. There to participate in my exhibition Le Capital: is a bitter irony in the fact that his birth and tableaux, diagrammes et bureaux d’études his death occurred in this tiny country, which at the Centre d’art contemporain in Sète.2 he always wanted to leave behind. One can This show was mainly concerned with the spend a lot of time speculating on how his question of how capital flows had become work would have shaped out if he had been a main topic in contemporary art, and how granted more time than just those few short artists were having recourse to a language of years. Like Yves Klein, Pino Pascali, Blinky abstraction, statistical tools, and diagrams to Palermo, and Jean-Michel Basquiat before outline what had since become an abstract him, Majerus’s work has gone down in art reality for them. Majerus turned a huge stretch history as one of those important oeuvres of wall in the first room into an assemblage, that was cruelly cut short. Which path would painted several elements in the gallery itself Majerus have embarked on? Perhaps his style and brought others with him from his studio, would have become more somber, become including parts from earlier installations. more “Kippenbergerian,” as the large lyrical Architectural in nature, this piece, containing paintings that were found in his studio colossal blow-ups (Yet sometimes what is immediately after his death would suggest. read successfully stops us with its meaning, Or perhaps—as is my personal belief—he unveiled at Manifesta), monochrome panels, would have evolved a new synthesis from the and signs that had been painted over, clearly diverse pictorial building sites of his mind. brought to light his method of composition: in Majerus was the kind of artist who did not all his work form and color were subjected to allow himself to be squeezed into a painterly a global image of contemporary life, informed formula. When I first met him in Paris in 1993, by a Pop—which is to say ambiguous—view he had nothing more to show than a thick of the two-fold dominance of the computer wad of small drawings, all inspired by the screen and commercial capitalism. This pop culture of the time, mostly by animation fundamental ambivalence in Majerus’s painting films. Their gentle irony was akin to that of was based on his ability to marvel at the such artists as Rita Ackermann and Jean-Luc signs of commercial rhetoric and the visual Blanc, who were also working at the time on a flotsam and jetsam of the packaging industry, sensitive reappropriation of the dream factory, counterbalanced by his belief in the power executed by hand. of art and its ability to open the public’s eyes to the toxic environment in which we find I only encountered Majerus’s works again in ourselves. Romanticism and irony feed off 1998, during Manifesta 2, which was then held each other and lead to a whole new synthesis: in . His progression was evident Majerus’s art flits between the causticity of a Kippenberger, the iconic potential of Pop Art, structured as commercial displays according and the existential undertaking of a Basquiat, to the rules of product placement. This never actually settling on one. He manages fascination for the shopping mall aesthetic to suspend all these heterogeneous elements and attachment to Pop’s visual matrix are in a kind of precarious balance to reveal to us typical for Majerus’s works of the nineties. As the various facets of the world of capitalism, a reaction to the American Simulationist art of from visual aggression to popular lyricism, via the preceding decade, young artists were now alienation and rage. more likely to be inspired by the formal model of the flea market. From Thomas Hirschhorn to Rirkrit Tiravanija and Jason Rhoades, the Collage and Postproduction exhibition in Sète formed a complex visual circuit and was founded on such themes Of all painters, Michel Majerus undoubtedly as the availability of formal elements that embodies most clearly the methods of displayed a taste for the short-lived. From production that I attempted to outline and a painterly perspective, it revolved around analyze in my essay Postproduction.3 The the demand, dominant in the late twentieth casual manner in which he manipulated the century, for a historicizing or sentimental form signs of postindustrial culture, the diversity of painting, from John Currin’s mischievous of his techniques, as well as his disdain for portraits up to Karen Kilimnik’s or Elizabeth any subject that had not yet featured online, Peyton’s assessment of visual junk. Formal made his work a veritable manifesto for a equivalents to Majerus’s universe can be generation of artists that did not even view found in the double nostalgia that marked the painting as its preferred medium. Just as I did works of the Young British Artists, the years of a few years ago in Esthétique relationnelle, Koons, and Pop Art. But even the impact and I shall endeavor here to explore the forms immediacy of the visual approach of a Damien of knowledge particular to the age of Hirst [or Angus Fairhurst] possess neither connectivity. The central question here is: the bite nor the critical potential of Majerus’s how does the cultural chaos wrought by the paintings. One is more likely to find a profound Internet generate new modes of production reflection on the digitalization of painting and, more importantly, new artistic stances in in the work of Albert Oehlen, who one can the face of our changing environment? The truly see as Majerus’s equivalent in terms of term “postproduction” is of course drawn approach. Among his own generation, his from the audiovisual domain and applies to all direct peers were Bruno Peinado in France, aspects in the treatment of already recorded who drew on a perceived “creolization” of material: montage, inserts from other visual culture to fuse commercial graphic art with and audio sources, subtitles, voice-overs, fine art, Franz Ackermann in Germany, who special effects … Since these activities are indexes the contemporary landscape with seen as entirely connected with services and Google Earth and GPS, and Kelley Walker in recycling, postproduction is clearly anchored the USA, who couples the pictorial space with in the tertiary sector and its mindset. By digital circuitry. reworking forms already created by others and freely available cultural products, art When Majerus lived in Berlin in the second attuned itself to the global culture of the half of the nineties, he had direct contact information age. It is distinguished both by with other artists of his generation, who were the excessive augmentation of cultural signs extremely politically active and very involved and the radical inclusion of forms ignored or in techno and dj culture and were unabashed shunned up until then. in their manipulation of the language of advertising and corporate culture. One of At first glance, Majerus’s paintings only them, the video artist Daniel Pflumm, started contain images and forms that one has seen to rework brand names like AT&T and Sony somewhere else and that have long been into a kind of abstract “anti-ad” using self- common property, either borrowed from composed, minimalist, electronic music. consumer culture or from existing artworks. Svetlana Heger and Plamen Dejanov are also More to the point, however, his brand of two figures, who in 1999, shortly prior to their painting strives to abolish the difference separation, dedicated themselves entirely to between subject and form. By blending the company BMW and featured the products painterly techniques with packaging materials, of this particular brand in all their exhibitions. Majerus conceived his exhibitions as shop In the late nineties, Berlin was a bastion of windows, as advertising spaces, which he then capitalist hardcore realism, fuelled by the dramatic urban transformation process that to escape the “merchandise style” decried by saw the city mutate into the capital of a united Buchloh thanks to his repetition of motifs, the Germany. Majerus was strongly influenced constant juxtaposition of serial figures, and by this cultural atmosphere. One of the most visible brushstrokes. The results were some, essential principles of techno culture was the at times, brutal collisions, but through them abolition of the traditional separation between he rediscovered the essence of “modernist production and consumption, creation and collage,” whereby “the various fragments copy. A dj’s raw material comprises audio and materials of experience … are revealed, products that are already in circulation on exposed as tears, hollow spaces, irreconcilable the cultural market, in effect things that have contradictions, incongruous specifications, been designed by others. Due to the nature of pure heterogenity.”5 Majerus’s painting never the details used and his painterly techniques, allows itself to be beguiled by the things with Majerus was one of the artists of his day which it is fascinated. who came closest to being a kind of dj: by changing preexisting material through diverse The Pop monumentality and motley effects of color and form, he created visual iconography of his large compositions are at loops. Most importantly though, he both saved first glance reminiscent of James Rosenquist’s his images and worked on the composition key works dating from the sixties. Over the of his paintings on the computer. This fact is years, however, the art historical references of great significance, for the postproduction in his paintings became more explicit, in artists who emerged in the nineties and two- particular with regards to Ellsworth Kelly, thousands differentiate themselves from Gerhard Richter, , , postmodernism, and in particular from its and Martin Kippenberger. He “samples” details proclivity for citation, precisely through the from their works as a matter of course, like fact that they integrate the functions available they were a packet of Cornflakes. At the in the digital universe in their conceptions. same time, he engages with them in a subtle dialogue whose traces can be read as his Benjamin Buchloh was scathing in his composition unfolds. A nearly monochrome assessment of the postmodern painting of image in dazzling yellow, for instance, features the eighties, stating: “Style thus becomes the a white spot with a figure inserted into it in the ideological equivalent to merchandise: its bottom half of the picture, which in the choice universal interchangeability, its free availability of motif and layout reveals the influence denote a historical moment of closure and of Basquiat; in another area of the canvas stagnation. If there remains no other option the modulations in the bright background for the aesthetic discourse other than subsume the figures placed on top, in a similar maintaining its own system of distribution way to Ed Ruscha’s works. Also crucial here, and circulation of its marketable forms, then however, is the reference to Rosenquist, for, it should hardly come as surprise that all in contrast to Warhol or Lichtenstein, he calls ‘boldness has become mere convention,’ for a collage aesthetic, which also permeates with paintings gradually resembling shop Majerus’s work. Critics often claimed the windows, decorated with fragments of creator of the colossal F-111 (1965) produced historical references.”4 To dispel this view, a form of “Pop Surrealism” that illustrated in the nineties many artists were concerned the oddness of urban life in the industrial age with the forms’ use, which resolutely differs precisely through the over-sized scale of its from citation. What Buchloh criticizes as a figures. Rosenquist, wrote G. R. Swenson, “historical image” is the illusion of a unity and forces the viewer to become aware of the totality that conceals various historical aspects disharmonious, anonymous elements of a under the guise of “style.” By comparison, reality he is confronted with on a daily basis. the history of forms becomes a tool box 6 Despite the heterogeneity of the figures thanks to the process of postproduction, as and textual elements used by Majerus, in his seen from Mike Kelley to Henrik Olesen, or works the viewer has an impression neither Michel Majerus to Pierre Huyghe. By raising of oddness nor disharmony. As a mirror of awareness of the meaning and use of signs, an epoch full of contradictions and brutal they propagate history as an incomplete clashes, his paintings underscore the breaks action and move toward the kind of art, and distortions between the signs that, due to demanded by Walter Benjamin that redeems their familiarity, we hardly perceive anymore. the “defeated”—the political summons of the formal phantoms of the past, brought before the tribunal of the present. Majerus managed An Impressionism of Capital contemporary artists to work from home in a similarly radical way as Impressionism, In every game, the introduction of a new which required the artists to work outdoors. element marks the start of a new session: the Whereas they focused primarily on capturing historian and critic Hubert Damisch has shown daylight, the main concern of the digital era that every epoch in art has at its core at least is to manage the influx of data streaming in one game of opposites, whereby the opposed from outside within one’s own four walls. The forces emerge depending on which new subjects whirl around before the eyes of the “conceptual figures” burst into the great game artist under artificial light. of art.7 In the mid-19th century, the camera was The mental space that Michel Majerus quickly responsible for triggering the adventure of claimed as his own comprises shopping malls Impressionism. It introduced new functions and online shopping. Countless slogans and into the equation that caused painters to graphic forms can be found in his paintings, rethink the whole method of art production. snapped up here and there, especially The Internet and the rapid spread of marketing baselines (“newcomer,” “buy” etc.) digitalization proved just as revolutionary in or brand names. The originality of this mental the nineties. Similar to photography one-and- space, however, is the complete fusion of a-half centuries earlier, the primary impact of real and virtual, more precisely: in Majerus’s these new technologies was mental, inspiring paintings we see both the street and the new approaches to subject and composition. website as he blends the symbols of urban Michel Majerus was among the first to really centers (graffiti, skateboards, shop windows) avail himself of this new development. It could with the layout of the computer screen even be said that his painting from the outset (superimposed layers invocative of pop- was fully formed by the digital age, in fact, ups, duplication effects etc.) into one unit. it was digital in its very ambition. The basic Majerus’s art presents us with city life against composition of his works was determined the backdrop of the rising dominance of the by the tools of the computer, by “copy and Internet. He is one of the first to show us paste,” and the strong presence of the form today’s world from this angle. In his paintings, of the computer screen. His iconographic the city is transformed into a gigantic website portfolio is a response to the extreme before our eyes: architecture, like the monitor, profusion of chaos that we enter when surfing turns into pure advertising space, for an online the Internet, to the ready availability of forms existence whose sole purpose is commerce. In and symbols it offers and to a cultural universe his important painting series, which he created where the old hierarchies have collapsed. in 2000 during his time in Los Angeles and provided the material for the exhibition The comparison with Impressionism is not Pop reloaded, Majerus found the ultimate accidental; this movement also arose from confirmation of his intuition: by including the coming together of a new technology— video in his pictorial constructs, by placing photography—with the introduction of tubes computer screens and canvases side by side of paint that enabled painters to work directly he succeeded in truly fusing city architecture in front of a motif. Claude Monet and Camille with the ceaseless advertising associated Pissarro did not just invent an original way of with it; in this vision he embeds references applying paint but a completely new sensory to art, clearly borrowed from Twombly or approach: artists were now in the center of Richter. He also incorporated himself in this the landscape, surrounded by their chosen cityscape—his many (different) signatures subjects and hypersensitive to the play of light could be seen flickering across the video on form. Impressionism was also the art of screen—a confirmation that even the artist can the Parisian suburbs, a practice that entailed only assert himself as one logo among many coming into close proximity with the subject in this world of liquid crystals and computer matter to be painted. Transferring this schema monitors. to the technology of our age, it becomes The visual matrix of Pop Art that underlies clear that digital devices have facilitated a Majerus’s artworks is augmented and very similar shift: with little furor, new tools complicated by the motif of the computer have appeared that connect the computer screen, which is at once both visual with numerous other periphery appliances and conceptual. The forms, the effects (photocopiers, scanners, editing programs for of graininess, or transparency, and the images and film …). All of this can take place in functionalities of the monitor become a sort the privacy of the artist’s studio, thus allowing of pictorial “master signifier,” to take up Lacan’s concept, in just that moment when he in shopping malls or advertising brochures. enters our everyday lives. As we have seen, He was more concerned with “impressions” the PC is both an instrument of production than with a theory of pictorial space and his and the supplier of subjects, but in addition, work is derived more from flash photographs it can also be the source of new forms of than from any kind of formalism. He allowed composition. “Perspective,” writes Rosalind himself to be guided by his keen sense for Krauss at the beginning of the seventies, the relations between form and color. This “is the visual correlate of causality that one aspect creates a common thread throughout thing follows the next in space according to his oeuvre. Paul Cézanne believed that a rule.” In Modernism, painting shed itself of the painter was only indebted to the logic of monocular (spatial), centrist perspective and color, stating that whoever could truly feel replaced it with “a temporal one, i.e., history.”8 could also truly think—painting is first and Clearly, the Internet and cultural globalization foremost optics.9 From the breathtaking array generate new ways of perceiving human space of colors in his first painting, dominated by which can hardly be represented accurately glowing yellow, light pink, pale blue, and lurid by its physical coordinates alone. In the greens, to his last monochrome gradations of works of globally active artists, perspective black, Majerus’s artworks are ultimately short, has since become geographic (mobility, gripping stories told with colors. travel, and cultural nomadism as methods of composition) and historic (heterochrony as 1. Irving Sandler, Le Triomphe de l’art américain, T.2, Les the spontaneous perception of the world). Années 1960, Paris 1990. One figure no longer “follows the next” to 2. Le Capital: tableaux, diagrammes et bureaux d’études, give us an ordered impression of the universe exh. cat. Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain (CRAC), but, conversely, is juxtaposed in a play of Sète 1999. 3. Nicolas Bourriaud, Postproduction, Dijon 2002. transparencies and chaotic collisions that aim 4. “Figures d’autorité, chiffres de regression,” in Benjamin to reproduce the complex heterochrony of our Buchloh, Essais Historiques I, Paris, 1992, p. 38. experiences in the networks of the globalized 5. Ibid., p.39. world. Majerus’s paintings address this 6. G. R. Swenson, Sandler 1990 (as in note 1), p. 190. question directly: fields of color, brushstrokes, 7. Hubert Damisch, Fenêtre jaune cadmium, Paris 1984. 8. Rosalind Krauss, “A view of modernism,” in Artforum, graffiti, logos, slogans, enlarged details from September 1972. commercials, and well-known figures from 9. Quoted by Gilbert Gatellier, in Cézanne, Paris 1968. art history are brought together without Michel Majerus, Luxembourg artist any hierarchies and before backdrops that are always reminiscent of the imperturbable computer screen, always ready for the next sequence.

It is no coincidence that Majerus intuitively recognized a connection between his work and that of Ellsworth Kelly. In contrast to most abstract painters of his time such as Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, or Frank Stella, Kelly’s artworks contain close references to the outside world. His motifs stem from the memory of visual phenomena, be it the form of a window that he saw in Paris or the space between two objects. Similar to Kelly’s work, Majerus also deals with memories; his works are composed of mnemonic traces of visual impressions. Putting it another way, we could say that independent of their material origins, the symbols and forms that he gathers in his compositions are always a variation of a concrete memory from daily life—to reiterate—without ever lapsing into the quasi Surrealist strangeness of Rosenquist, for instance. Majerus’s space is obviously related to a precisely remembered image of streets covered in graffiti, window displays Michel Majerus

Michel Majerus, born in 1967 in Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. Studied at fine arts’ academy in Stuttgart. He died in a plane crash in 2002.

Personal exibitions 2002 Sozialpalast, Brandenburger Tor, Berlin, DE 2011 Leuchtland, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, Michel Majerus, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, US Stuttgart, DE controlling the moonlight maze, Michel Majerus. zweihundervier neugerriemschneider, Berlin, DE sechzigmalsechzig, neugerriemschneider, Berlin, DE 2000 if we are dead, so it is, Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2009 Cologne, DE lost forever, neugerriemschneider, Berlin, DE demand the best don‘t accept excuses, Monika Sprüth Galerie, Cologne, DE 2006 The space is, where you’ll fi nd it, The Delfi na Michel Majerus, , Musée d’Art Moderne Studio Trust, London, GB Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg, LU 1999 2005 sein lieblingsthema war sicherheit, seine these what looks good today may not look good - es gibt sie nicht, neugerriemschneider, tomorrow, , , DE Berlin, DE demand the best don’t accept excuses, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, DE 1996 what looks good today may not look good fertiggestellt zur zufriedenheit aller die tomorrow, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL bedenken haben, neugerriemschneider, Berlin, Michel Majerus. Installationen 92-02, DE Kunsthaus Graz am Landesmuseum Michel Majerus, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, CH Joanneum, Graz, AT aquarell, Hamburger Kunstverein, Hamburg, DE 2004 Pop Reloaded, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, GB 1994 gemälde, neugerriemschneider, Berlin, DE 2003 Pop Reloaded, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, D Collective exibitions 2002 The Starting Line, Pinakothek der Moderne, 2009 Munich, DE The World is Yours – Contemporary Art, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 2001 DK Freestyle, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, DE Extended. Sammlung Landesbank Baden- Württemberg , ZKM / Museum für Neue Kunst, 2000 Karlsruhe, DE The Sky is the Limit, Taipeh-Biennale, Taipeh, CN 2007 Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image- 1999 Making, MOMA, The Museum of Modern Art, German Open, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, New York, US Wolfsburg, DE Reality Bites: Making Avant-Garde Art in Post- dAPERTutto, 48. Esposizione Internazionale Wall Germany, Mildred Lane Kemper Art d´Arte, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, IT Museum, St. Louis, US 1998 2004 Manifesta 2, Biennale européenne d‘art BIACS – Bienal Internacional de Arte contemporain, Luxembourg, LU Contemporáneo de Sevilla, I Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla, Sevilla, ES 1996 Wunderbar, Hamburger Kunstverein, 2003 Hamburg, DE Heißkalt. Aktuelle Malerei aus der Sammlung Wunderbar, Kunstraum Wien, Vienna, AT Scharpff, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, DE Sitings: Installation Art 1969-2002, MOCA, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, US Michel Majerus, If we are dead, so it is, 2000. michel majerus estate, Berlin. Photo : F. Deval © mairie de Bordeaux Heart of the city… heart of urban cultures

The CAPC asserts its will to associate experimentation and quality, and public mobilization, always more numerous, more diverse and more regular. The museum demonstrates its anchoring in Bordeaux and its permanent work of investing the territory and linking the public. That’s why during the summer season, the CAPC opens "the artwork - rampe" of skateboard if you are dead, so it is gives to sport, cultural or social organisations. The museum becomes, the time of sessions, a space of meeting between Michel Majerus's works and living urban cultures: space/time of transmission, workshops, meetings, demonstrations, social link …

A social and environmental project If you are dead, so it is, the ramp, a construction that is part and parcel of Bordeaux’s social and environmental project. To build it, the CAPC called on the Chantiers Tramasset, whose brief is to help people in situations of exclusion to re-integrate, through involvement in shipyard carpentry projects. At the end of the exhibition, and as part of a partnership between the CAPC, the 58th and Darwin, Michel Majerus’s work will be dismantled and the ramp will be moved to the “Hangar” on the Darwin Eco-System site, to join its project to develop skating. www.chantierstramasset.fr - www.darwin-ecosysteme.fr

Partner associations AiRoller Created by a small group of roller-skating The 58th/Darwin enthusiasts, the association organizes hikes An eco-designed indoor skate-park dedicated and offers urban skating courses, whose to urban cultures established on the site of brief is to train autonomous and responsible the former Niel Barracks, on the right bank at skaters. Bordeaux Bastide. www.airoller.fr www.darwin-ecosysteme.fr/le-qg-et-la-58eme GUE2M Board-O The goal of this association (Glisse Urbaine All year round the association offers Skating Entre 2 Mers/Urban sports between 2 seas) classes and courses for all kinds of public, is to promote and develop urban sports like children and adults, novices and enthusiasts. the BMX and Skateboarding, through courses, www.boardo.fr demonstrations, events and advisory actions… Based in southern Gironde, its programmes Octopus are nationwide, thanks to the Festival This association broaches skateboarding as a Vibrations Urbaines at Pessac, and the BMX culture and a lifestyle. With a skateboarding FR CUP. school, the organization of “sporting” events and cultural meetings for the promotion of Burgercom skateboarding and urban cultures, Octopus An association of four young Bordeaux is developing skateboarding from different graphic designers. Yohan Benazzouz, Martin angles. Caro, Adriend Colombié and Rémy Gendre www.octopus-skate.org answered the CAPC’s invitation and, for the Michel Majerus show, are proposing a graphic world for all the documents available to the public. www.burgercom.fr The “Sports” meetings

If you are dead, so it is, a monumental work in the shape of a skateboard ramp. And functional! The Bordeaux associations AiRoller, Board-O, GUE2M, Octopus and the 58th, all involved in the sports and skating world, have answered the CAPC’s invitation to propose demonstration times, practical courses and even initiation classes. First major rendez-vous on 2 June 2012.

French Skateboard Championships, Santa Practical skateboarding sessions for CAPC Cruz & About Team visitors, trained by the association. For the Bordeaux stage of the 2012 French Sundays 24 June and22 July Skateboard Championships (2 and 3 June from 11 am to 1 pm 2012) and at the invitation of Octopus and the CAPC, Santa Cruz and About, recognized GUE2M world skating champions, are taking over Practical session for association members Michel Majerus’s work in the museum’s nave. and private visit to the show Saturday 2 June from 7-9 pm Wednesday 12 September Admission free from 2.30 to 5.30 pm

French BMX Championships Octopus www.bmx2012.fr Skateboarding school and private visit At the CAPC’s invitation and for the 2012 BMX to the show Bordeaux event, drivers from the BMX Stade Wednesday 6 and 20 June and Bordelais will share their prowess with us in Saturday 23 June from 11 am to 1 pm the museum’s nave, pitting themselves against Michel Majerus’s work Skateboarding course and private visit Friday 13 July at 3.30 pm to the show Admission free Wednesday 4, 11, 18 and 25 July from 11.30 am to 1 pm AiRoller Roller-skating initiation sessions for CAPC The 58th/Darwin visitors trained by the association Closing evening for the Michel Majerus Wednesday 13 June and 19 September exhibition: demonstrations by professionals, from 5.45 to 7.45 pm cocktail and DJ. Saturday 22 September from 6 to 11 pm Practical session for members and private visit to the show On skateboards and roller skates and by Sunday 1 and 29 July from 11 am to 1 pm foot, everyone will be able to tackle Michel Majerus’s work. To take part, consult the Board-O cultural programme or follow us on Facebook Demonstrations by professionals and and reserve your place! association members Wednesday 4 and 11 July from 5.45 to 7.45 All rendez-vous on: www.twitter.com/CAPC musee Practical session for members and private visit www.scoopit/t/capc to the show www.facebook.com/capc.musee Wednesday 27 June and 29 August from 5.45 to 7.45 pm Michel Majerus, 2000 pressure groups 3, 2002 Artworks presented Video screening (DVD 30 min). Acrylic on cotton, Variable dimensions 300 x 300 x 10,2 cm in the exhibition michel majerus estate, Berlin michel majerus estate Courtesy neugerriemschneider Courtesy neugerriemschneider

mm1, 2001 Reminder, 1998 Acrylic on cotton 15 acrylic panels on canvas, lacquer 260 x 300 cm on aluminium, 20 paintings on Private collection canvas, text painted on wall, wall and Courtesy neugerriemschneider stairs Variable dimensions Cool white, 2000 MoM Block Nr.5, 1996 Fnac Inv. : 2000-457 Digital print on aluminum Acrylic on canvas Déposit of Centre national des arts 450 x 640 x 6 cm 200 x 180 cm plastiques – ministère de la Culture Private collection, Berlin Private collection et de la Communication, Paris, 2007 Courtesy neugerriemschneider degenerated, 2001 Tron 10 (Polystrol-Spiegel), 1999 Acrylic on canvas MoM Block Nr.11, 1997 Silkscreen on canvas, polystyrene 280 x 400 cm Acrylic on cotton mirror Collection d’art contemporain de la 200 x 180 cm 300 x 300 cm République fédérale d’Allemagne Collection Charles Asprey Private collection Courtesy neugerriemschneider Depression, 2002, MoM Block Nr.33, 1998 Acrylic on cotton Acrylic on canvas Untitled (violet), 1997 279,5 x 399 cm 200 x 180 cm Acrylic on canvas Collection Edith et Jean Majerus Private collection 300 x 320 cm Collection Musée d’Art Moderne enough, 1999 MoM Block Nr.68, 2000 Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas Luxembourg 250 x 400 cm 200 x 180 cm Donation des Amis des Musées d’Art Collection Sander Private collection et d’Histoire, Luxembourg

Erwachet!, 1999 MoM Block Nr.89, 2000 what looks good today may not look Lacquer on aluminium Acrylic on canvas good tomorrow, 1999 277 x 420 cm 200 x 180 cm Acrylic on canvas Collection Edith et Jean Majerus Munich Re Art Collection 303 x 341 cm Collection Reno et Veit Görner Fries, 2001 no more, 1999 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas what looks good today may not look 280 x 400 cm 250 x 400 cm good tomorrow, 1999 Tate : Purchased from funds provided Collection Boros, Berlin Acrylic on canvas by Evelyn, Lady Downshire’s Trust 303 x 341 cm Fund 2004 nothing is permanent, 2001 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg Acrylic on canvas Gewinn, 2000 260 cm x 450 cm Yet sometimes what is read Acrylic on canvas Collection Reno et Veit Görner successfully, stops us with its 480 x 700 cm meaning no.II, 1998 15 parts ohne Titel (Collaboration Nr.6), 1999 Lacquer and digital print on Each 160 x 140 cm Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas aluminium Courtesy Skarstedt Gallery, New York 200 x 180 cm 278,5 x 485 x 15,5 cm Private collection, Berlin Private collection If we are dead, so it is, 2000 Courtesy neugerriemschneider Wood, digital print, multiplex, acrylic, Pathfinder, 2002 lacquer Digital print on vinyl 3mmT-1, 2001 300 x 960 x 4200 cm 380 x 290 x 3,5 cm Acrylic on canvas michel majerus estate, Berlin michel majerus estate 280 x 400 cm Courtesy neugerriemschneider Collection Landesbank Baden- It’s cool man, 1998 Württemberg Lacquer and silkscreen on aluminium pressure groups 1, 2002 251 x 548 x 15,5 cm Acrylic on cotton 3mmT-2, 2001 Collection Reno et Veit Görner 300 x 300 x 10,2 cm Digital print on PVC michel majerus estate 280 x 400 cm liebt euch 2, 1999 Courtesy neugerriemschneider Collection Charles Asprey Lacquer and digital print on aluminium, pressure groups 2, 2002 280 x 300 x 4 cm Acrylic on cotton Private collection 300 x 300 x 10,2 cm Courtesy neugerriemschneider michel majerus estate Courtesy neugerriemschneider Pictures available for the press

Michel Majerus mm1, 2001 Michel Majerus Acrylic on cotton pressure groups 1, 2002 260 x 300 cm Acrylic on cotton Private collection 300 x 300 x 10,2 cm © michel majerus estate. © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Michel Majerus Pathfinder, 2002 Digital print on vinyl 380 x 290 x 3,5 cm © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus nothing is permanent, 2000 Acrylic on canvas 260 x 450 cm Collection Reno et Veit Görner © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Michel Majerus Michel Majerus pressure groups 2, 2002 no more, 1999 Acrylic on cotton Acrylic on canvas 300 x 300 x 10,2 cm 250 x 400 cm © michel majerus estate. Collection Boros, Berlin Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus what looks good today may not look good tomorrow, 1999 Acrylic on canvas Michel Majerus 303 x 341 cm enough, 1999 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg Acrylic on canvas Michel Majerus © michel majerus estate. 250 x 400 cm pressure groups 3, 2002 Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Collection Sander Acrylic on cotton © michel majerus estate. 300 x 300 x 10,2 cm Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Michel Majerus Michel Majerus liebt euch 2, 1999 Untitled (violet), 1997 Lacquer and digital print on aluminium, Acrylic on canvas 280 x 300 x 4 cm 300 x 320 cm Michel Majerus Private collection Collection Musée d’Art Moderne MoM Block Nr. 89, 2000 © michel majerus estate. Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Luxembourg Acryl auf Leinwand / Acrylic on canvas Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Donation des Amis des Musées d’Art et 200 x 180 cm d’Histoire, Luxembourg Munich Re Art Collection © michel majerus estate. © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus cool white, 2000 Digital print on aluminum 450 x 640 x 6 cm Private collection, Berlin © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus Michel Majerus MoM Block Nr. 33, 1998 MoM Block Nr. 5, 1996 Acrylic on canvas Acrylic on canvas 200 x 180 cm 200 x 180 cm Private collection Private collection © michel majerus estate. © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus Gewinn, 2000 Acrylic on canvas 480 x 700 cm 15 parts, Each 160 x 140 cm Courtesy Skarstedt Gallery, New York © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Michel Majerus 3mmT-2, 2001 Michel Majerus Digital print on PVC it’s cool man, 1998 280 x 400 cm Lacquer and silkscreen on aluminium Collection Charles Asprey 251 x 548 x 15,5 cm © michel majerus estate. Collection Reno and Veit Görner Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Michel Majerus Tron 10 (Polystyrol-Spiegel), 1999 Silkscreen on canvas, polystyrene mirror 300 x 300 cm Private collection Courtesy neugerriemschneider © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus Depression, 2002 Michel Majerus Acrylic on cotton degenerated, 2001 279,5 x 399 cm Acrylic on canvas Collection Edith et Jean Majerus 280 x 400 cm © michel majerus estate. Collection d’art contemporain de la Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin République fédérale d’Allemagne © michel majerus estate. Michel Majerus Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Erwachet!, 1999 Lacquer on aluminum 277 x 420 cm Collection Edith et Jean Majerus © michel majerus estate, 1999. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Michel Majerus Michel Majerus yet sometimes what is read successfully, 3mmT-1, 2001 stops us with its meaning, no. II, 1998 Acrylic on canvas Lacquer and digital print on aluminum 280 x 400 cm 278,5 x 485 x 15,5 cm Collection Landesbank Baden- Private collection Württemberg © michel majerus estate. © michel majerus estate. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin Exhibitions CAPC musée d’art contemporain Michel Majerus 31.05.2012 – 23.09.2012 Entrepôt Lainé. 7, rue Ferrère F-33000 Bordeaux Make-up Tél. +33 (0)5 56 00 81 50 31.05.2012 – 02.09.2012 Fax. +33 (0)5 56 44 12 07 [email protected] Observing and anticipating www.capc-bordeaux.fr 31.05.20.2012 – 23.09.2012 Access by Tram The artwork and its archives B line, CAPC stop, 09.02.2012 – 09.12.2012 C line, Jardin Public stop

Press Info Schedules 11h -18h CAPC musée d’art contemporain 11h - 20h Wednesdays Blaise Mercier Closed on Mondays and public holidays T. +33 (0)5 56 00 81 70 T. +33 (0)6 71 12 79 48 Guided Tours [email protected] 4 pm Saturdays and Sundays. [email protected] by appointment for groups T. +33 (0)5 56 00 81 78 Mairie de Bordeaux Service presse Library T. +33 (0)5 56 10 20 46 14h – 18h, Tuesday to Friday [email protected] T. +33 (0)5 56 00 81 59

Claudine Colin Communication arc en rêve Samya Ramdane centre d’architecture T. +33 (0)1 42 72 60 01 T. +33 (0)5 56 52 78 36 [email protected] [email protected]

Follow us Café Andrée Putman http://twitter.com/CAPCmusee Restaurant http://www.scoopit/t/capc 11h -18h, Tuesday to Sunday http://www.facebook.com/capc.musee T. +33 (0)5 56 44 71 61

Partners Société Générale is Permanents CAPC L’exposition Michel Majerus est reconnue d’intérêt national par le ministère de la Culture the main partner of Air France et de la Communication / Direction générale Michel Majerus Château Chasse-Spleen des patrimoines / Service des musées de exhibition France. Elle bénéficie à ce titre d’un soutien The work and its archives financier exceptionnel de l’Etat. The exhibition Michel Majerusis recognized as a national interest by the ministère Château Haut-Selve de la Culture et de la Communication / Direction générale des patrimoines / Service des musées de France. She has been financially supported by the State Nova Sauvagine Observing and anticipating 20 minutes Has been funded with Château Fonchereau support of the Drac Aquitaine capc-bordeaux.fr