Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean presents Next Step – Michel Majerus, a film about the life and work of the Luxembourgish painter Michel Majerus. The museum’s close ties with Majerus go back to its early days when in 2007, a major monographic exhibition of the artist’s work was held. Majerus’ work has been part of Mudam’s collection since 2002.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he moves to the German metropolis and starts contributing to its thriving arts scene. His complex and often large-scale artworks, loaded with references ranging from pop culture, comics, and advertising to art history, combining painting with digital media, don't go unnoticed. Michel Majerus quickly succeeds in gaining recognition and making a name for himself on the international scene. His art is highly sought-after and exhibited in the most prestigious institutions. In 2002, however, his blooming career at its peak, the 35-year-old artist tragically dies in a plane crash.

Next Step is a documentary dedicated to the life and career of this prolific painter and asks how an artist’s work and legacy might be preserved and kept alive after his death.

Director’s biography

Anne Schiltz studied at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She lives and works in Luxembourg. Her documentaries include The Sweet Life and all that goes with it (2002) and Gordian Troeller Revisited – Eritrea (2007). The director's interest in music is reflected in her first documentary feature Cello Tales (2013), which seeks to uncover the nature of people’s unique relationship to this instrument, and in Courants d'airs (2017), which sheds light on three women composers from Luxembourg. Her latest film, Next Step, focuses on the life and career of the late artist Michel Majerus.