Luc Tuymans' aim was to create pertinent images during the global pandemic. The arist explores issues of history and memory as well as the relationship between photography and painting, using a muted palette to create canvases that are at once withholding and disarmingly stark.The catalogue centered on four monumental canvases on which numbers were painted, alongside three paintings and an animation film. Drawing on imagery from photography, television and film, his distinctive compositions make ingenious use of cropping, close-ups and framing, offering fresh perspectives on the medium of painting as well as on broader cultural issues.
À Londres, la Royal Academy of Arts consacre une grande rétrospective au peintre belge James Ensor. Organisée par Luc Tuymans, l'exposition relie la vie de James Ensor et son héritage. Mêlant le bizarre au macabre et au fantastique, il a créé durant toute sa vie une oeuvre discrète et fascinante, entre expressionisme et surréalisme.
-With his muted palette, conspicuous brushwork and idiosyncratic approach to history, Luc Tuymans (b.1958) has changed the course of contemporary art, influencing a whole generation of figurative painters -Produced in close collaboration with the artist, Luc Tuymans: Is It Safe? presents more than 100 brand new paintings, most never before published -Insightful texts by Tuymans and essays by Pablo Sigg and Gerrit Vermeiren expand upon and contextualize this significant new body of work -Also included are the artist's source images and numerous installation photographs
This book offers a kaleidoscopic vision of contemporary art in Central Europe presented in the historical setting of Bruges. The recurrent themes of the backdrop of history and how they translate artistically through memory, so prevalent in Luc Tuymans' own artistic practice, here provide the unique starting point for an unusual visual investigation. Existing texts, documents, and original writing listed in alphabetical chapters allow for reading in any order. Reflective essays and literature in the left column shed light on the book as a whole. It starts with Polish artists, including Bruno Schulz, Tadeusz Kantor, Andrzej Wróblewski and Zbigniew Libera, then pans out to other parts of Central Europe, with artists such as Sigmar Polke, Katharina Fritsch, Gerhard Richter, David Maljkoviæ, Zlatko Kopljar, Pavel Büchler and Anri Sala. Animation is included as a key focus in, among others, work by Jan Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers. The project's non-linear approach broadens to include the origins of pop art in the person of Andy Warhol and surprises with the compelling Japanese post-war perspective of Takashi Murakami.
