neugerriemschneider is pleased to present our tenth solo exhibition of work by Michel Majerus. For gemälde, the artist’s monumental first show with the gallery is recreated at our Linienstrasse location. A free-standing, to-scale replica of its original site in Berlin-Charlottenburg houses the works that were on display in 1994, paying tribute to the artist’s innovative practice and re-extending his invitation to experience and engage with painting in new ways.

From November 19 to December 23, 1994, gemälde showcased a room-filling grouping of new work by Michel Majerus in neugerriemschneider’s then-recently inaugurated gallery at Goethestrasse 73. The space housed an installation of a wall painting, works on canvas, drawings and a reproduced segment of a curved street. While varied in style and process, these all displayed the distinct qualities and conceptual underpinnings that would become emblematic of the artist’s practice. 

With his all-enveloping presentation, he deployed an adept, varied navigation of scale to create works that reacted to and took full advantage of the gallery’s confines—wrapping around its doorway and covering its surfaces, ultimately encapsulating the artist’s overall approach and placing the viewer within pictorial space. With enlarge-o-ray … on! (1994), painted on the gallery’s rear wall, Majerus directly cites popular culture with references to a Roger Rabbit comic, overlaid with a small canvas callout that shows the narrative’s following scene (“too big … better turn off”) and integrates with its backdrop. Inked renditions of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner feature on a scroll of wallpaper, layered under painted allusions to the work of figures such as Frank Stella and Willem de Kooning, among others. sauerei (1994), a two-part, oil-and-acrylic canvas nearly spans the entirety of the room’s opposing face, in an expressive composition that gives way to obscured, cartoon-derived illustrations and the textual fragment “Dead suckers” – one that had appeared in his previous work and hints at his artistic forbearers.

A portion of neugerriemschneider’s original tiled floor is left still visible, marking the asphalt as a makeshift stage, and providing a metaphorical and literal road along which to discover Majerus’ installation.

gemälde is part of the Germany-wide exhibition series Michel Majerus 2022, dedicated to the artist’s generation-defining work and presented to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his passing. In five unique solo exhibitions taking place at the Michel Majerus Estate (April 28, 2022 – March 18, 2023), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (October 22, 2022 – January 15, 2023), neugerriemschneider (November 8, 2022 – January 14, 2023), Kunstverein in Hamburg (November 12, 2022 – February 12, 2023) and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (December 17, 2022 – February 5, 2023), Michel Majerus’ oeuvre is honored on an unprecedented scale. In parallel with these exhibitions, 13 museums throughout Germany present works by Michel Majerus from their collections. A comprehensive catalogue featuring contributions by Cory Arcangel, Karen Archey, Diedrich Diederichsen, Brigitte Franzen and Rirkrit Tiravanija to be published in spring 2023 will accompany this series of exhibitions. In addition, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents the first institutional solo exhibition of the artist’s work, on view from November 29 – March 12, 2023, while Mudam in Luxembourg hosts their key Majerus exhibition from May 31 to October 15, 2023.

Thilo Heinzmann’s pigment paintings, each entitled O.T. (all 2022), are the results of diverse cumulative processes, encapsulating analytical approaches to painting and an understanding of the discipline’s component parts as developed and refined over the course of his career and across work complexes such as his Aicmo and Tacmo series – the results of painterly research and discovery. Heinzmann reaches toward the essentials, dissecting the medium to expose its fundamentals, and deploying his established tools including color, form, line, space, texture and contour in dynamic interplay. In doing so, he strikes a delicate balance between concentrated decision making and unpredictability.

Work by Thilo Heinzmann (b. 1969) has been featured in international institutional exhibitions, and is in a number of public collections including Tate, London; Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; M+, Hong Kong and Tiroler Landesmuseen, Innsbruck. Thilo Heinzmann is a professor of painting at Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany, where he lives and works.