Flash forward to Hans-Jörg Mayer, the art school student. His time at The Academy of Fine Art, Munich was marked by a strong sense of freedom, taking advantage of studio space rather than lectures. Mayer’s institutional experience was infiltrated by memories from childhood, haunted as he was by days spent in front of the television set. During this time he built his initial aesthetic framework via square format text paintings, leaning into the weight and non-weight of words.
Mayer felt a natural pull to abandon ship after seven years in Munich, aware of its drawbacks and inspired by the promise of Cologne’s burgeoning scene - as well as his soon-to-be dealer there. Daniel Buchholz discovered Mayer’s works while the artist attended university and came to represent him in 1986. As the youngest dealer in Cologne at the time, Buchholz alighted in the milieu and introduced his new artist to its participants, acting as his tour guide for some time.
Hans-Jörg Mayer
Hans-Jörg Mayer, born in 1955 alongside Southern Germany’s Lake Constance, grew up in a small village without the cultural influence of a nearby metropolis. Instead, the young boy habitually sat perched in front of the television, attuned to imported American series, ones that boasted cowboys and gun-slingers, secret agents and animated comic book heroes. His parents were members of a book club that offered its members a new text every month. For Hans-Jörg, this meant an influx of new material to pour over. One book, however, stood out and came to define his adolescent interests. Lucy Lippard’s Pop Art (World of Art), with its original cover bearing the word “POP” repeated all over the cover in a chic 1970s typeface. initiated a thread that has carried through the artist’s practice. His fixation on the tome was first attributable to its images and, later on, its theoretical conceits.
