Michael Jäger

Pink Pink

13 July - 25 August 2007

Go to Jäger Homepage

(L) Collage at the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany, 2006; (R) Detail from Ornet #3, 2005, 149 x 98cm, oil and lacquer on acrylic glass

“Jäger’s painting sprawls across the borders of the picture to occupy entire walls. His installations can be read as transcending the panel painting without actually giving it up. The possibilities of the panelled painting are discussed in the context of a wall painting but this is not just a simple extension of the picture.
The paintings are sometimes set on coloured grounds which produce either inherently flat or spatially illusionistic effects. The dialogue between the paintings and the coloured structures on the walls is a conversation which allows both parties to retain their autonomy but allows the viewer to explore and interpret the differences and affinities between them.
The picture-object though is never absorbed by the mural. It remains the centre of painterly activity without being its exclusive purpose or aim; and Jäger’s art for him cannot possibly restrict itself to one medium, because it is, in his conception, an enormously productive system - ever changing and expanding - so much so that its energy cannot be bound by a painting, or within one specific painting.
This is manifest in his large works which, as they spread out and take possession of the walls, captivate the viewers but is also no less apparent in the small paintings. From a formal aspect, these smaller paintings differ from the large works, in that they feature, not geometric lines, but an organic, almost biomorphic vocabulary. They are marked by a changeability, a certain metamorphic restless quality which rules out the status quo.”

Text edited from an essay by Christoph Schreier in Wandbildband, translated by Katrin Grünepütt, ed. by Niessen GmbH. Kunstverein Freiburg/Heilbronn/Essen 1997

Moskau #1, 2006, oil and lacquer on acrylic glass, 92 x 120cm

Michael Jäger was born in 1956 in Dusseldorf, Germany. He attended the Art-Foundation Baden-Württemberg, Germany and the Cité International des Arts, Paris amongst other institutions. Jäger lives and works in Cologne. This will be his first solo exhibition at Broadbent.