Michel Majerus / Kurt Schwitters

From November 5, 2022 to March 5, 2023, Kunsthalle Bielefeld presents the sixth edition of the exhibition series “Face to Face and Side by Side” with works by Michel Majerus and Kurt Schwitters.

The series “Face to Face and Side by Side” focuses on a work from the collection of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, which addresses central issues in juxtaposition with another specially selected artistic position. In the encounter between Michel Majerus and Kurt Schwitters, these are: What characterizes painting? What are the basic elements of painting? What are their limits?
Despite his early death, Luxembourg artist Michel Majerus (1967-2002) left behind a multifaceted oeuvre. Among other things, he varies motifs and themes from Web 2.0 and uses the visual language of comics and advertising. In this way, he creates painterly collages that spring from pop culture and everyday life, samples different elements, reassembles them and thereby transfers them into other contexts. At the same time, Majerus repeatedly refers to art historical role models and references, such as Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) or Frank Stella (*1936). With “pressure groups 2”, Majerus refers to Stella’s “shaped canvas” works. These specially shaped canvases go hand in hand with a tendency to do away with the flat, rectangular panel painting. This is intended to bring about a correspondence between the content and form of the picture, an interlocking of external and internal form.

Around one hundred years ago, Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) designated the syllable “Merz” as a word mark, thereby propagating his diverse work in the fields of art, literature and typography. The term “Merz” stands for a concept of the greatest possible unreservedness and artistic freedom in the choice of means of expression. With his utopia of the “Merz Gesamtweltbild”, Schwitters aims to unite art and non-art. The montage and material art with which he physically expanded the space of the picture by integrating objects into the painting was significantly influenced by him. But even beyond his “Merz pictures”, Schwitters’ paintings show his preoccupation with questions about the status of painting: Schwitters creates spatial effects through the use of colors and shapes and their combinations.

Is a painting something flat or an object in space? How is space created – especially without a recognizable object? What role does color play in this?

The joint juxtaposition of the two artistic positions invites us to discover similarities and contrasts, overlaps and peculiarities through comparative viewing and to get to the bottom of them.

The exhibition is part of the Germany-wide exhibition series “Michel Majerus 2022“, which is dedicated to various phases of the artist’s work and aspects of his extraordinary oeuvre twenty years after his death. In addition to the presentation in Bielefeld, 17 other institutions are taking part.
A comprehensive publication will accompany the exhibition series in 2023.

“Michel Majerus – Next Step”
Film screening and discussion with Benedikt Fahrnschon
On December 14, 2022, the documentary “Michel Majerus – Next Step” will be shown at 6 p.m. in the Kunsthalle Bielefeld. The film commemorates the life and work of the artist.

Curator: Benedikt Fahrnschon

The exhibition series is produced in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1288 “Practices of Comparison. Ordering and Changing the World” at Bielefeld University.