Karen Archey talks at the Michel Majerus Symposium at Mudam

may not look good tomorrow: The Legacy of Michel Majerus
Symposium
09 Nov 2022
@ Mudam Luxembourg

Bettina Steinbrügge, introduction
Karen Archey, talk + Q&A

Through a series of talks and lecture-performances followed by a panel discussion, the symposium investigates the influence of Michel Majerus’s (b. 1967, Esch-sur-Alzette – d. 2002, Niederanven) work on the practice of the ‘digital-native’ generation of artists, curators and researchers.

International speakers working in and researching the field of visual arts will address the relevance of Majerus’s reflections today, while discussing different aspects of his legacy.
In the span of a short yet exceptionally prolific career, Majerus has captured his time, decades marked by the expansion of globalised consumer culture and digital technology. His large-scale paintings and installations, characterised by the ‘sampling’ and collaging of an eclectic repertoire of imagery and text borrowed from art history, video games, commercials or electronic music resonate with the image and information frenzy of the Internet 2.0 pervading contemporary society. In his work, Majerus transgressed the well-worn rules of painting and created unmistakable interpretations of the pop culture of the 1990s and early 2000s that remain of unfailing relevance today.
The symposium what looks good today may not look good tomorrow: The Legacy of Michel Majerus is the first chapter of a programme dedicated to the work of Michel Majerus and will be followed in Spring 2023 by an exhibition at Mudam and a publication gathering the contributions to the symposium.

Karen Archey is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Formerly based in Berlin and New York, Archey worked as an independent curator, editor and art critic, writing for publications such as Artforum and frieze. At the Stedelijk, Archey cares for the contemporary art and time-based media collections and administrates the contemporary permanent collection display Tomorrow is a Different Day. She has organised major exhibitions on artists Hito Steyerl, Rineke Dijkstra and Metahaven, as well as the group exhibition Freedom of Movement: the 2018 Municipal Art Acquisitions. She heads the museum’s research initiative on the acquisition, conservation and display of time-based media.