PAINTING ON THE
AGENDA
From 1976 to 1982, Luc Tuymans (° 1958) studies painting at diverse
academies in Belgium. He could have spared himself the trouble, for it
soon turns out that he had been misled by his teachers: nobody seemed
interested any longer in the medium they had learned him to master.
Probably to get a broader view on the problem - but also because there
is something of an intellectual in him - he proceeds to study Art
History from 1982 to 1986, equally in Brussels. Meanwhile, he remains
also active as an artist, although in a more contemporary medium: film.
In 1985, however, he returns to painting. Especially since a new wind
began to blow from Germany: with the exhibition 'Zeitgeist' (1982), the
uncomplicated joy of painting broke through on the European scene with
the 'Neue Wilden', painters like Georg Baselitz Jörg Immendorf, Markus
Lupertz, Sigmar Polke, Rainer Fetting, Helmut Middendorf and Salomé. For
Luc Tuymans' first exhibition 'Belgian Art Review' in the Palais des
Thermes in Ostend (1985), on the other hand, there was not the least
interest. But after some exhibitions in 'Ruimte Morguen' and 'Zeno X' in
Antwerp, Jan Hoet (the curator who became famous with 'Chambres d'Ami'
1986), buys his 'Body' in 1990. In 1992, the same Jan Hoet selects his
work for the Documenta. Soon, there are exhibitions in diverse European
countries, and finally also with David Zwirner in New York (1996 The
Heritage). In 2001, he causes a furore at the Venice Biennale (with Jan
Hoet as a curator). This is the beginning of triumphal progress via the
White Cube ('The Rumour' 2001) and Saatchi in London (Display Room 2) to
the Tate Modern and K21 in Düsseldorf in 2004. Presently, Luc Tuymans is
universally hailed as "the man who put painting on the agenda" again,
yes, even as the most important painter of his generation, nothing less
than the successor of Gerhard Richter.
SUBJECT MATTER
Luc Tuymans foremost caught the attention by his subject matter: themes
like the holocaust, (Belgian) colonialism (Mwana Kitoko, 2001), the rise
of the New Right in Flanders (Heimat, 1995), Conservatism in America
('The Heritage' 1995-1996, 'Security' 1998, 'Proper' 2005), sexual abuse
of children and recently also the church ('The Passion', 1998-99 and
'Les Revenants', 2007). A broad array op political themes.
How political are these themes? Many of them seem to be inspired by the
personal experiences of Luc Tuymans. Thus, the obsession with the
holocaust comes as no surprise with someone whose family from mother's
side was active in the resistance, whereas his family from father's side
sympathised with the Nazis. His unhappy youth and his childhood
anxieties may have made him susceptible for the theme of the sexual
abuse of children, and, through his wife and his friends, he is
acquainted with the effects of Jesuit education. The strange thing is
that these themes are not handled directly, but wrapped in themes that
are in vogue in the media. The series 'Heimat' (1995) is a reflex on the
rise of the New Right in Belgium, that came to a first apogee with the
'Black Sunday' of 1991. The theme of sexual abuse of children appears in
1996, the year Marc Dutroux was arrested. The theme of 'Mwana Kitoko'
appears after the publication of Ludo de Witte's book on Lumumba in
1999, where the involvement of the Eyskens administration and the
Belgian Royal House in the murder on Patrice Lumumba is handled. And the
portrait of a boy in the series 'Les Revenants' (2007) suggests that the
theme of the power of the Jesuits may have something to do with the
recent paedophilia scandals.
At once, it also becomes clear that Luc Tuymans' themes only apparently
cover a broad array. On a closer look, it rather strikes us that many
themes are completely absent. Adult private life is underrepresented, as
well from the point of view of the inner life of the individual, as from
the point of view of parental and sexual relations and eroticism. And as
far as politics is concerned, where he seems to feel better at home, Luc
Tuymans is rather obsessed by the resurrection of the old monsters, than
by the impact of the modern versions, which are, if possible, still more
devastating. For, Nazis and bureaucrats have the advantage of being
clearly identifiable, which is not the case with the 'Invisible Hand'
that is increasingly taking over the lead in our present world. In that
sense, Luc Tuymans' obsession with the past is rather a kind of
blindness for what is happening here and now before our eyes. Besides,
we can have some doubts about the political awareness of someone who, on
occasion of his exhibition 'I can't get it' in the Museum of Photography
in Antwerp (2007) had a smoking room installed as a way of demonstrating
his resistance to the banning of smoking from public life. (He is not
alone is his struggle: also that other revolutionary from Antwerp,
Jan Fabre, joins him in his resistance with his 'I am a mistake', in which,
together with Wolfgang Rihm, he sings the praise of smoking - 'the
pleasure that is trying to kill me').
We cannot escape the impression that the involvement with what is
topical in the media only masks a blindness for what is really at stake.
That Luc Tuymans is above all interested in the problematic that have
influenced his childhood experiences, makes us suspect that his
political themes are merely a metaphor for private problems, especially
childhood experiences. In that respect, a comparison between ''Gas
chamber' (1986) and the children's room in 'Silent Music’ (1992) speaks
volumes. We will come back on this theme later.
UNDERSTATEMENT
Remarkably enough, the man "who put painting back on the agenda"
harbours a deep distrust in the image.
That distrust is, among others, inspired by the fact that the image is
often used to mask horror: think of the opposition between the images of
the Nazi propaganda and the monstrosities perpetrated by that regime, as
denounced in 'Our new Quarters' (1986). In some of his paintings, Luc
Tuymans is out at a reversal of this obfuscation by making a painted
version of the photo, as when he overpaints a photo Reinhard Heydrich
(1988) from 'Signal' with sunglasses. The images distorts not only in
that it conceals the horror behind misleading glamour and heroic poses.
More often, there is a shift from the political to the private. Again,
Luc Tuymans disturbs the idyll through reversing the shift. Just think
of the painting after of photo of a fallen skier who turns out to be
Speer (Der Architekt, 1998), or of 'Walking (1989), after a photo with
Hitler and setting off on a walk with his escort in Berchtesgaden. We
get the feeling that something horrible goes hidden behind these
seemingly banal snapshots.
Soon, this procedure becomes Luc Tuymans hallmark. The private is
thereby generalised to the banal as such. The gaze of the unsuspecting
onlooker falls on pictures, which, at first glance, look innocent, if
not poetic, precisely because the horror has been removed. Thus, from
the concentration camps, Luc Tuymans paints only the empty gas chambers.
From the visit of King Bouduain to the Belgian Congo, we get only to see
his foot on a leopard skin rug spread by two black hands. But the banal
turns out to be a mere trap: inadvertently, the onlooker is confronted
with the horror that has been zoomed out or removed from the image. Luc
Tuymans describes such breakthrough in terms of an 'assault' (Aliaga*).
Through such reinvestment of the banal, Luc Tuymans succeeds in
reinstalling the horror in our memory. He thereby undermines the idea
that the horror is such that it cannot be depicted in an image.
According to Luc Tuymans, the only truth in this contention is that the
horror cannot be handled in, say, depicting heaps of corpses - referring
to the more explicit approach of painters like Anselm Kiefer (if not to
documentary films).
Luc Tuymans' most cherished procedure can be described in two ways. In
terms of photography, it is a 'close-up', a zooming in on a detail of
the whole image. No zooming in on the kernel of the proceedings, however:
these are rather zoomed out of the image. From the spreading of the
leopard skin rug before the feet King Bouduain, we only get to see the
leopard skin. 'Zooming away' might be a better name for this procedure.
We can also describe such 'zooming away' in terms of the conventional
academic genres. Luc Tuymans is then turning away from 'history painting'
- the explicit depiction of the human drama, condensed into one single
meaningful scene. He withdraws in the 'lesser genres' of the hierarchy:
landscape, interior, still life - where the painter 'zooms away' from
human drama to concentrate on the place where it happens (interior,
landscape) or on the objects which he uses or produces (still life).
Thus, 'Schwarzheide (1986), can be classified as a 'landscape', 'Gas
chamber' (1986) as an interior, 'Orchid' (1998) as a flower piece,
'Bird' (1998) as an animal piece.
Such shift from history painting to the lesser genres, must be seen in a
broader art historical context. The shift began already centuries ago,
lead to an open rejection of history painting by the Impressionists,
came to an apogee through the introduction of abstract art, and was
completed by the banning of every narrative element from art. Against
this background, we understand not only why Luc Tuymans has a
predilection for the lesser genres, but also why he often tends to
become completely abstract, like in 'Insomnia' (1988), where there are
only unidentifiable spots to be seen. But, as a rule, Luc Tuymans feels
more at home in the preceding phase where the lesser genres are taking
over. In that sense, Luc Tuymans' painting is a step backwards, a step
towards a pre-modern phase in the development of modern art. As a matter
of fact: Luc Tuymans does not believe in something like a synthetic
image in which reality is contained in a condensed form, as usually
expected from history painting. According to Luc Tuymans, a universal
image - the ultimate history painting - is impossible: we can only lift
the veil through fragmentary images.
Nevertheless, Luc Tuymans understand his still lifes, interiors and
portraits as 'history paintings', not as lesser genres. They are only
'understatements': on closer view, the rather banal subject matter
conceals a more encompassing world of horror.
OVERSTATEMENT
But, let there be no confusion: it is not the image that works such
reversal from 'a sense of cosiness' in the seemingly banal genre piece
into the historical dimension of 'something terrifying' (Aliaga*). At
its best, the image is only the occasion of such transformation. It is
rather the word that ignites the fire. It does so on three levels.
To begin with, there are the texts in or below the image. We are not
dealing here with the usual titles that provide further information on
the subject matter, even less with titles that facilitate the access to
the image, or put our mind on the right track. A text like 'Our new
quarters' (1986) does something totally different. It is only through
these words that the meagre image gets some substance and that we
realise that we are dealing with the model camp built by the Nazis in
Theresienstadt to deceive the world. That surely makes us think: all
kinds of memories and images pop up in our mind. Until we suddenly
realise that we are no longer looking at a painting. The text makes us
discard the image and lose ourselves in a train of thoughts and memories
completely independent from the image.
Next to the titles, also the comments of Luc Tuymans himself are
indispensable for a proper understanding of the image. A title like 'Schwarzheide'
is only the onset of a longer comment, that initiates a train of
thoughts in its turn. The comments can be found in a increasing number
of books devoted to Luc Tuymans, but also in the catalogues - like the
one for the Kunsthalle in Bern (1992) where every single painting is
commented on. That results in the hilarious - but telling - spectacle in
the exhibition 'Der Diagnostische Blick' in Düsseldorf. Rather than
looking at the paintings hanging on the walls, all the visitors stood
staring in the booklets distributed at the entrance.
Another essential part of the extensive glosses around Luc Tuymans'
images is the information about the photos used by Luc Tuymans. Thus, we
are told that the image of 'Mwana Kitoko' descending from the aeroplane,
is borrowed from a propaganda film on the visit of King Bouduain to the
Belgian Congo. The intention is to spare the art historians the trouble
to find the origins of the image themselves,
Finally, it speaks volumes that also the titles of the exhibitions
themselves play an important role. This is understandable as long as we
are dealing with series of images like 'Heimat' (1995), 'Mwana Kitoko'
(2000-2001) or 'Les Revenants' (2007). But, for Luc Tuymans, also new
combinations of pictures that have been isolated from the initial
series, like in the Tate or in K 21 Düsseldorf, have to be read as a new
discourse. They are thereby reduced to mere signifiers that get a new
meaning in another context. Nothing demonstrates better how, for Luc
Tuymans, paintings are mere occasions for a discourse that is
essentially independent from the image.
In a first series of images, hence, the text is merely a kind of midwife
that brings to birth the real content of the painting or the exhibition
as a whole. The child that is thereby delivered, is no longer an image,
and, a fortiori, not a history painting. Rather is it a complex of
thoughts and representations in the mind, as independent from the
painting as the meaning of a word from the arbitrary sound of the word
itself. The withdrawal into the detail or into the 'lesser genre' turns
out to be only a first move, which is completed by a second, where the
word takes the lead. The image as un understatement is replaced by the
word as an overstatement. As if in the work of Luc Tuymans Hegel's
prophecy about the spiritualisation of art comes true once more, against
Schopenhauer's claim that art has to overcome the shortcomings of the 'Begriff'
through the 'Idee'.
The question is why Luc Tuymans continues to resort to the image
altogether. Why not become a writer or a philosopher rather than a
painter? The answer is obvious. Without the prestige of the image, Luc
Tuymans' 'philosophy' would not be heard at all. In that Luc Tuymans
entrusts his ideas to paintings, he not only gets a forum, but good
money as well. That would not bother us too much, if Luc Tuymans had to
tell us some epoch making insights. But that is not at all the case.
Take 'The Architect' (1998). Only after reading the title and the
comments, we see that a skier has fallen; that the skier is Speer, the
architect of Hitler who also designed the concentration camps; that the
original image is a snapshot made by his wife during one of their
holidays; and that there is a blue hue around the image intended to
suggest that the image is projected on the canvas as a screen. In the
comments, we read something about 'the banality of evil'. Hannah Ahrend
has written an entire book on the subject already in 1963, and the idea
has become widely accepted in matters of the Nazi era. Luc Tuymans'
painting only repeats a commonplace. Rather than the vehicle of epoch
making insights, Luc Tuymans paintings are not more than a kind of
illustration of the ideas of others.
The discrepancy between the painting and the train of thoughts is
sometimes rather ridiculous. A painting from the series 'Passion' with a
yellow canary on a blue background ('Bird',1998) is supposed to be 'travesty
of Christian symbolism' - in casu: the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Luc
Tuymans says that he has deliberately chosen a 'domesticated image and
an unusual colour to profanise the idea of the sacred dove'. To the this
time genuine doves 'in dumb disarray' on 'Pigeons' (2001) - a banal
animal piece - the comments read: 'Dirty and disease-ridden, they're a
strangely curious mob, a metaphoric stand-in for ourselves... Luc
Tuymans offers a chilling ultimate truth about humankind. He makes a
cold comedy of a terrifying thought.' Speaking of an assault! Not in
that the seemingly banal suddenly turns out to be horrendous, but in
that a banal image is purported to be freighted with a deeper meaning!
STATEMENT
The seizure of power by the word devalues the image: it is no more than
an occasion to a flight of thoughts and representations in the dark room
of the skull. That has everything to do with Luc Tuymans' already
mentioned distrust in the power of the image. That distrust goes further
than a mere distrust in some kinds of images. The criticism of the
propagandistic image, which, in a first phase was extended to a
criticism of history painting or the 'pretentious myth of the image as a
synopsis of reality', develops in a second phase into a criticism of the
image as such: the painting as a mirror of reality would not at all be
able to hold a mirror to reality. As a reaction to September 11th, Luc
Tuymans painted his 'Still life' (2002). No 'zooming away' from the
banal here, but a resolute substitution of history painting with a still
life, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Twin Towers: a pastiche
on Cézanne as a symbol of painting as such. In this painting, the lowest
of the academic genres is no longer an occasion to a flight of thoughts
and representations that presumably cannot be caught in the image, but
rather an example of the impotence of the image to tell something about
the real world altogether. Such conception of the painting as a
blindfold is accentuated by the magnifying of the size of the image - a
gesture that up to now had been alien to Luc Tuymans. As if this
non-subject also wanted to attract all the attention. "I had great fun
making the painting because, although it is by far my largest, it
represents the least" (Heynen*). Only here does it become clear how far
reaching the seizure of power of the word has become. For, whereas the
banality of what is to be seen on many of Luc Tuymans' paintings hints
at a reality behind the picture - with a little help of the text - in
this case, there is nothing whatsoever in the image that might suggest
that it had something to do with the Twin Towers. We learn that only
from the comments.
That goes even more for those other paintings, where Luc Tuymans paints
a mirror. In 'Mirror' (1999), we see a nearly monochrome rectangle. In
the upper corner on the right, there is a lighter rectangle, and on the
left a kind of cube. It is impossible to identify what is represented
here. Unless we read the title, but above all the comment: apparently,
we are looking at a mirror, a mirror where there is nothing to be seen.
In 'Mirror 1' (1992) Luc Tuymans paints a stain on a mirror. We see only
a stain, not the face that is normally reflected in the mirror. And in 'Slide'
(2002), we see a rectangle of light on a wall. In the textbook, we learn
that we are dealing with a projector without slide installed. Or, to
phrase it with Berg: 'a bottomless and unfathomable ground is the
substrate of a motif that itself exhibits nothing but its own absence'
(Berg*).
In these 'mirror paintings' the role of the word is, if possible, even
more constitutive than in 'Still Life'. In the first place, it is only
the text that turns the stains on the images into reflections in a
mirror. In 'Still Life', it is at least our very own eyes that discern a
still life. And, second, the image itself is no more than a non-verbal
statement - a variant of the painting of Magritte, where we see a
rectangular window where we would expect a canvas. In paintings like
these, the images are not only totally dependent on the word, the word
usurps the role of the image. The painting is no more than a non-verbal
statement on the image as such or on the relation between the image and
reality.
Next to the image as a mere occasion for the flight of thoughts and
representations, then, there is also the image as a mere non-verbal
statement or as an example to Luc Tuyman's discourse on the image.
THE IMPOTENT IMAGE
'Was mann nicht malen kann, das muss man nicht malen wollen.'
(free after Wittgenstein...)
An obvious objection is that the image is always dependent on the word.
But that is only a modern fable, that has become popular ever since it
has been so eloquently advocated by Roland Barthes. When looking at
Goya's Kronos, you need not know who the man eater is - the title rather
diverts the attention from what there is to be seen in the image. And
that goes equally for the Venus of Urbino. Things are different when we
are dealing with paintings like the Primavera of Botticelli or with
paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. These pictures ask for an explanation,
simply because the figures are non-verbal symbols. The image is here
reduced to a mere vehicle. Not surprising that it resists its
subordination: the three graces continue to seduce the eye, also when it
does not know that it is looking at the Three Graces and what their
function in the non-verbal statement is.
There is also another way in which the image can become dependent on the
word. Every image is embedded in a cultural context. As long as that
context is shared by the onlookers, there is no problem. Problems arise
only when the image is isolated from the environment in which it
originated. It is obvious that non-Belgians have to get the required
information when they are confronted with a hint at the 'Vlaams Blok' or
at ' Mwana Kitoko'. The problems become principial when we are dealing
with images from the past. These have to be placed in the appropriate
context through art-historical explanations. And, since most great art
works stem from the past, and hence have to be embedded in an art
historical discourse, the totally erroneous impression grows that art as
such deserves explanation. Many modern artist abuse this state of
affairs when they have their meanwhile obligate exegetes explain what
their pictures do not convey. Luc Tuymans goes even further: he has
become his own exegete and simply cannot stop to spin an ever growing
web of comments around his paintings
Whereas, in the allegory, the word distracts from the image, with Luc
Tuymans, the word is rather constitutive of the image: only when reading
the comments do we see the monochrome surface as a mirror, and as a
mirror in which there is nothing to be seen. The same goes for the lamp
of which we read in the booklet that it is made of human skin. One might
object that there is no other means of making it clear that we are
dealing with a lamp made of human skin. But the conclusion should be
that such a subject is not appropriate to be painted - there is so much
left that can be painted properly. Genuine painters are not looking for
images that could convey their preconceived ideas, they create images
that speak for themselves.
And, to deal with still another modern fable: wherein precisely does the
image fail? Is it not in the first place photos and images which
revealed the horror of the holocaust to the world? And did they not do
so precisely in being indexical/causal - 'narrative' par excellence?
Paintings cannot rely to the 'ça a été' to the same extent. Of course, a
picture - whether painted or photographed - is not reality itself: it
may be more disturbing or more reassuring, more superficial or more
profound, and that only depends on the intentions and the competence of
the maker. But in any case, it holds that a good image can be more
speaking than even the best word - but above all: more speaking that
even the most eloquent reality. Precisely therein lies the function of
art, and precisely therefore will we always need art.
Again: suppose the image fails, why should it do so only after the
holocaust? As if history is not one endless series of atrocities
perpetrated with ever new destructive strategies and through ever new
forms of organisation, of which the administrative/technological
genocide by the Nazis is a meanwhile somewhat obsolete phase. And what
would have prevented Goya from denouncing them in his 'Desastres de la
guerra' - not to mention Brueghel in his 'Dulle Griet'? The truth is
that painters, misled as they were by the slogan that painting should
not be narrative, have relegated the task of history painting to the
photographers and the filmmakers. They thereby lost the necessary
experience to make convincing history paintings. Already the images
during and after the First World War, often partake of the caricature.
And towards the outburst of the Spanish Civil War, the problems with
which Picasso was confronted in his 'Guernica' testify to the impasse in
which history painting had landed. Where a resistance against the
narrative did not exist - think of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany and
Franco's Spain - the tradition remained alive, although, equally as a
consequence of the anti-narrative fervour, it was undermined in that the
artist used an obsolete language. This stylistically outdated tradition
lost every credibility in that it praised rather suspected regimes
rather than criticising them, like Goya and Brueghel did. The
combination of obsolete 'academic' technique and propaganda for
unconvincing regimes, made it all to easy to equal 'history painting'
and 'propaganda' - and the CIA could not wait to proclaim abstract art
to the very hallmark of the 'free world'.** Thus, the genuine tradition
of formally progressive and contentually critical history painting, like
that of Brueghel and Goya, was gradually undermined and betrayed. For,
apart from the problem of style, there is the central problem of the
quality of the world view of the artist. The truth is that most painters
simply do not have a world view that is worth conveying. For, to have
problems with the old and the new Right, imperialism, the sexual abuse
of children and the Jesuits is one thing, to reveal the deeper reality
that expresses itself in all these phenomena, quite another. There is no
purpose, then, in contending that it is impossible to paint a history
painting in this 'most horrible of all times'. The truth is simply that
Luc Tuymans not only is incapable to paint one, but above all that he
has no insight in our present 'condition humaine' that is worth
mentioning (or painting). Which is not to say that figures like Richter,
or Kiefer and Immendorf would have succeeded better. There is, finally,
still another factor that deters many a painter from history painting. A
painting that would tell something interesting about say the widening
divide between the rich and the poor in our world, is not sellable to a
multimillionaire that has to invest his dollars in a painting. And I can
imagine the problems of an atheist confronted with an outstanding
history painting advocating the restoration of spiritual values...
Rather than admitting that he is not able to produce a convincing
history painting - or that it is too dangerous or too little commercial
- Luc Tuymans prefers to argue that it is painting itself that is no
longer appropriate. He thus delivers another fatal blow to painting: for
Luc Tuymans does not more than spinning a web of words around the image,
to take his place in the mid of it as a kingly spider that, in a
veritable act of auto-castration, bereaves his own images of their very
substance. The old allegories were so strong as images, that they tended
to shed of the cobweb woven around them or to discard it altogether in
the end. With Luc Tuymans, the image has become so dependent on the
word, that we are only left with an empty carcass when the web is
removed.
PAINTING AS PHILOSOPHY OF PAINTING
'I am not interested in aesthetics; I am into meaning and necessity'
Tuymans (from Aliaga*).
Luc Tuymans resorts to the word for other reasons than the supposed
shortcomings of the image. The factual impotence to make a
self-contained image is in the first place the result of the
restrictions that the artists imposed on themselves by adopting the
dogma of the inartistic nature of the narrative element, the pursuit of
abstraction and 'musicality'. But, on a deeper level, Luc Tuymans is
also the executor of a much older version of the mimetic taboo: the
contempt for the image as such, that has become endemic in the plastic
arts ever since Duchamp's saying that art is not a question of the
retina, but of the brain. Henceforward, more and more artists begin to
philosophise about art through making images - through painting about
painting, or more general: through making art about art. Again and again,
ever more pseudo-philosophers come to echo Duchamp's dictum, which is in
its turn a profane echo of Hegel's version of the mimetic taboo. One of
Luc Tuymans' variants sounds: 'The small gap between the explanation of
a picture and a picture itself provides the only possible perspective on
painting.' That these artists-philosophers express themselves
non-verbally - not with words on paper, but with the brush on the
canvas, if not with objects on pedestals, yes even with entire
constructions in real space called installations - has as a consequence
that the already long racks reserved for the philosophy of arts in the
libraries, are now extended with the cellars in the museums, where all
these voluminous considerations are stocked.
If to any, then Luc Tuymans certainly belongs to this tradition. That is
apparent from the constitutive role of the word as analysed above. It is
also unambiguously testified by the many assertions of Luc Tuymans where
he speaks or art as of a statement, as when he says about Ad Reinhardts
'Black Square: 'It is the representation of nothingness. A black square,
no more. A clear statement. Just like Duchamp's Fontaine'. Or when he
describes his own 'Still Life' (2002) as a 'Western European statement'
(Tusa*). And it becomes more than obvious when we compare Luc Tuymans'
painting with verbal statements painted on canvas like those of Ben
Vautier and Baldessari, or with On Kawara's dates painted on canvas.
Also these statements and dates are no more than occasions for flights
of thoughts and representations. That Luc Tuymans' statements have more
in common with painting than mere letters and numbers painted on canvas,
makes it all the more easy for devotees of art who are fond of
philosophising, to uphold the impression that their hobby has something
to do with art. In that sense, Luc Tuymans' paintings are only more 'artistic'
versions of the very conceptualism that he is supposed to reject. Luc
Tuymans: a crypto-conceptualist. The cliché about the man who put
painting on the agenda again in a climate where painting was declared
obsolete - just think of Cathérine David who, on occasion of the Xth
Documenta (1997) declared that painting is at its best academic and at
its worst reactionary - only obfuscates the contrary truth: that Luc
Tuymans still taps old wine from new wineskins. That the wineskin looks
old - bleached-out, yes even 'craquelé' - should not make us believe
that we are dealing with new wine in old wineskins...
THE PHOTO AS MIDWIFE OF THE PAINTING
Bad artists copy. Good artists steal
Pablo Picasso
Luc Tuymans not only resorts to the word, he has also a distinct
predilection for photography. Let us therefore, in a second section of
this text, examine this predilection.
We already pointed to the fact that the heirs of history painting are
not to be found in painting, but in photography and film. A vague
consciousness thereof will certainly have driven Luc Tuymans to the
camera. It remains a riddle why, after his return to painting, he not
just inscribes himself in the tradition of Brueghel and Goya. For,
despite his return to painting, Luc Tuymans continues to resort to
photos and film stills. He thereby refers to Spilliaert. But more
obvious is the example of Gerhard Richter, who, in the vein of Pop
Artists, uses advertisements and all kinds of illustrations as raw
material for his paintings.
Richter openly declared that painting after photos freed him from the
necessity of selecting or constructing a motif. Luc Tuymans'
justification sounds that everything has already been painted. Well
known is the story how he saw the self-portrait, with which he had won a
competition, reproduced in the book on Ensor that he received as a prize.
Luc Tuymans came to the conclusion that it is no longer possible to make
an original. That the Neue Wilden could only feast their return to
painting in resorting to the manner of the 'Fauves', will only have
strengthened him in his conviction. And, if there has to be painting
nevertheless, the only option is to repeat what has already been done -
to forge existing works, but openly and, like Van Meegeren, in an own
recognisable style. 'Authentic forgery', as Luc Tuymans phrases it. But,
otherwise than Van Meegeren, Luc Tuymans does not forge paintings, let
alone history paintings of old masters - which would have made it clear
once and for all how absurd his undertaking is. No, Luc Tuymans makes 'authentic
forgeries' of photos, by transforming them in paintings. Which is
legitimised in its turn by the contention that painting can only be a
representation of a representation - think of Richter's 'second order
representational strategy'. Painting as re-presenting photos hence, as a
mirror of an image rather than of 'nature''. Which is, again, another
variant of the widespread practice of making art as a reflection on art,
rather than as a mirror of reality. To escape the reproach of making art
that only refers to itself - did he not in the first place attract the
attention by his subject matter? - Luc Tuymans concocts the construction
that the 'reconstruction of the photographical image' is not just 'history
painting', but the 'the realising of history' as such (Tusa*).
Let us leave the justifications for what they are. That Luc Tuymans
proceeds from photos betrays that he is aware of the fact that, in
matters of history painting, you better rely on photographers. On the
other hand, that he transforms photos in paintings betrays that he ranks
painting higher than photography. The question remains why Luc Tuymans
does not resort to this superior technique for his history painting?
When reality, as it is misrepresented by photographs, can be
re-constructed, why not construct it right away on the canvas? Why make
the detour over photography?
The answer is that Luc Tuymans is not so much interested in history
painting as rather in something totally different: the trench war
between photography and painting. By repainting photographs, he
unambiguously states that only the hand of the painter can work the
wonder that - in Luc Tuymans' mind - remains out of reach of the
photographer. That is why he so conspicuously borrows his motif from the
photographical image in view of transforming it in a painting. No doubt,
after such transformation, the painting tells something totally
different from the photo. But so would re-photographing - of the same
photo or the same motif! And we are still talking in terms of the image.
For, since it is the comments that constitute Luc Tuymans' images,
embedding the photo in an appropriate context of comments would also do!
On closer view, it cannot be a contentual concern that lies at the roots
of this undertaking. It rather seems that we must conclude with Marshall
McLuhan that the medium is the message here. And that message sounds
that an image is art only when it is painted. It is only through
repainting the photo in view of conveying this message, that also a
vague reminder of what used to be called 'history painting', can be
smuggled into the museum again.
THE FACE LIFT OF THE PHOTO
How much the medium is the message, appears from the kind of
interventions Luc Tuymans makes when re-presenting his photos.
To begin with, there is the obligate blurredness of his images. From the
very beginning of photography, 'le fini' has become increasingly suspect
in painting. Not that painting would not be able to produce 'high
definition' - suffice it to refer to the Flemish Primitives, so much
admired by Luc Tuymans, or in a more recent past to Salvador Dali and
the 'sharp focus' of photorealists like Richard Estes, Robert Bechtle,
Chuck Close (who, by the way, do not feature in Luc Tuymans' discourse).
It is apparent that Luc Tuymans' conception of painting is indebted to
the aversion for this aspect of the photographic image and therefore
prefers brush strokes or texture above the cult of the detail, as it
comes to its fetishist apogee in the photography of Andreas Gursky.
Richter introduced a new version of the rejection of overall-sharpness -
the 'flou', that, already from the Pictorialists onwards, has been
regarded as 'artistique'. Luc Tuymans' obsession with photography - or
his eagerness to obfuscate his indebtedness to Richter - goes so far
that he even understands this characteristic of anti-photographic
painting in terms of photography: to him, the absence of 'fini' is not
so much a characteristic of painting since the invention of photography,
but in the first place of Polaroids that are not fully developed.
Precisely therefore, he regards them as more credible - artistic - that
the fully developed end products. As if the image would lose its
credibility in becoming sharp. Nevertheless, Luc Tuymans does not
proceed to making Polaroids. Already in 'Arena' (1978), that he
considers to be a central work in his development, the effect is
obtained by covering the figures with plastic foil...
A similar analysis applies to the bleached palette that has become Luc
Tuymans' hallmark. Also this is borrowed from not fully developed
Polaroids, and is especially appropriate to distinguish the image from
photography, that excels in its ability to render the full gamut of
colours in all its richness. Let us remark that the aversion for 'technicolor'
appears only after the invention of colour photography. As long as
photography was only able to render black and white, painting profiled
itself through playing off colour, preferably unbroken by the rendering
of tone: exemplary in the cloisonné technique of Gauguin or the
pointillism of Seurat. We conclude that Luc Tuymans' mania of washed-out
colours originates in his endeavour to distinguish himself from
photography. In addition, it also distinguished him from other painters
like the Neue Wilden, that made a furore when he began with his 'retour
à la peinture'.
Also deformation is, equally from the very beginnings of modern art, the
most obvious way to distinguish painting from photography, which is
renown for its true-to-nature rendering. That is why Luc Tuymans does
not project his images on the canvas, like Richter and the Photorealists,
but draws them with a pencil on the canvas. To deformation belongs also
the omission of details: 'In order to show something, I paint a lot away'
(Maja Naef in Dexter*)
Finally, the small Polaroids are magnified. Until Jeff Wall and Andreas
Gursky, photography equalled small formats, whereas painting, especially
after the Second World War, increasingly came to prefer larger sizes.
Luc Tuymans' choice of the size is determined by an effort to
distinguish himself as well from the smaller formats of photography as
from the larger formats of painting.
CONTEMPT FOR PAINTING ITSELF
In the above, we have shown that Luc Tuymans ranks painting higher than
photography, how much he might be devoted to the latter. But also his
high esteem is at least ambivalent: it goes hidden behind an overt
contempt for painting, a special variant of the contempt for the image
as such.
To begin with, Luc Tuymans experiences painting as 'antiquarian'. To
accentuate that, he often produces a artificial 'craquelé', like in
'Body' (1990). Also the age worn colours, apart from the fact that they
allow to distinguish his painting from commercial photography and
expressionistic painting, have to convey the impression that the image
is bleached by light. How much Luc Tuymans thinks in terms of
photography is evident from the fact that bleaching is the fate of
photos rather than paintings, which rather tend to darken.
The contempt shows itself also in his handling of what, according to the
analysis above, he considers to be the distinguishing characteristic of
painting: the brush stroke. Promoted to psychogram by the Action
Painters, aseptically banned from the surface by Pop Art and the New
Abstraction, it is triumphantly welcomed again by the Neue Wilden. Also
Luc Tuymans welcomes the brush stroke. But the expressive stroke of the
Neue Wilden is resolutely denied. Elsewhere he ridicules the magic of
the pre-expressionistic 'figurative' brush strokes, where the brush made
some self-contained movement on the canvas, that, from a distance,
turned out to be some figurative motif. Also this form of 'becoming
image' - mimesis par excellence - is resolutely denied with Luc Tuymans.
His brushstrokes cannot achieve the mimetic miracle, from whatever
distance you look. Exemplary is the painting 'Wiedergutmachung' where
you see a kind of eggs sunny-side up. According to the booklet, we are
dealing with eyes. But even when you know that, the stains never succeed
in becoming eyes. Precisely the brush stroke, that was mobilised against
the photographic 'fini', is bereaved of its expressive and mimetic
potential and reduced to a pure referent for the message 'this is
painting'.
It is certainly no coincidence that Luc Tuymans seems to have a
predilection for horizontal brushstrokes. They cannot but remind us of
the lines of a text. Even when painting, Luc Tuymans writes - think of
Dotremont and Cy Twombly. Also on this level, painting is turned into
writing.
The irony is that also these anti-expressionistic strokes of Luc Tuymans
acquire an expressiveness that is not intended, but not less real. This
is the whole dilemma of ignorance: also clumsiness has an expressive
value of its own. You are always right, hence, as already the artists of
Cobra understood. Although it applies also here that one clumsiness is
not the other: it suffices to compare Picasso with Appel.
The same applies to composition, precisely the domain where the hand
made image is superior in principle to the photographical image. Take
'Tentje': Luc Tuymans wants to achieve a sense of discomfort through an
inadequate position within the rectangle. To be sure: an inadequate
composition has an expressiveness in its own right, just like a clumsy
brush stroke. But how little Luc Tuymans is interested in composition,
is apparent from the fact that he has no problems with having 'Silence'
embroidered or silk screened on a shirt designed by Walter van
Beirendonck. Of course, the dialogue between the figure and the frame
falls away. If there was any altogether. For Luc Tuymans paints his
images on a large canvas on the wall (like Pollock on the ground). When
finished, he frames it in a rectangle by painting the rest away! That
reminds not so much of Pollock, as rather of the photographer.
And it is above all evident, finally, from the way his works are
conceived. Luc Tuymans images do not originate during painting itself -
from a permanent dialogue between the unforeseeable effects of the brush
and the deliberate intentions of the hand. Luc Tuymans' has a clear cut
concept in mind when he begins to paint -and executes this concept
within a few hours: 'I use drawings and before I begin painting the
imagery is completely finalized. So the execution of the painting goes
very fast, but the work before the painting, the conceptualizing of the
image itself is a long period of time.' (interview with 'The scene').
'ALS ICK KAN' ('AS BEST I CAN')
Jan Van Eyck
All this talk about the impotence of the image is not only an expression
of the mimetic taboo, but also a construction to mask Luc Tuymans'
inability, that only testifies to the secret, but frustrated desire to
walk in the wake of the real masters of painting: to become Antwerp's
new Rubens, if not Flanders' new Van Eyck. Several contradictions betray
such secret desire.
To begin with, Luc Tuymans prides himself that he has been a virtuoso
painter in his academy years and that he afterwards intentionally denied
the 'aesthetic' aspect of painting. However, not much of this virtuoso
manner seems to have survived, not even in its negation. We cannot but
surmise that the negation is nothing more than an alibi to conceal that
he is not really good at using the brush stroke in a convincing way,
neither in the mimetic, nor in the expressive, nor in the constructive
sense.
The same goes for his bleached colours. Luc Tuymans declares: 'A tone
can grow, a colour cannot’ - as if to excuse himself for the fact that
he denies himself the use of a full colour palette. Authors like Berg*
echo: 'His painting seem pale and monochromatic, but nonetheless reveal
an abundance of colourful nuances and distinctions'. But, even when many
art lovers breathed again when they saw the pastel colours of Luc
Tuymans light up in the museums, his paintings are rather 'grey holes'
than a seemingly neutral background from which eventually colours begin
to light up. Some awareness of the lack of lighting power of his
paintings may have led at the base of his sneer on Morandi, whose work
he called `poetic bullshit'. That does not prevent thinning down with
white from being a proven way of circumventing all the real problems
with colour. And even within this thinned-down colour palette, Luc
Tuymans mostly restricts himself to elementary dyads of complementary
colours: he seldom lets triads resound, let alone still more complex
combinations of colours. With the same self-confidence, Luc Tuymans
declares that he resigns from full colours because 'depth deals mostly
with the idea of tones and not with full colours' (Tusa*). In reality,
lack of depth, perhaps more that those bleached out colours of him, is
the hallmark of all the paintings of Luc Tuymans.
Also the shying away from 'full' history painting is based not only on
contentual impotence, but above all on a lack of compository skills.
For, painting a fragment of a mirror is one thing, composing a painting
with many figures another. Not for nothing did Renaissance artists
regard history painting and 'compositio' as synonyms. Against this
background, we understand that other sneer, this time on Rubens, whom
Luc Tuymans called the 'Cecille B. de Mille' of the 17th century.
Luc Tuymans has also his problems with the portrait. The man who was
rewarded at the academy for a self-portrait, repeatedly confessed that
he is not interested in the psychological portrait (Aliaga*). In the
comments on 'Der diagnostische Blick', we read that it was the intention
to make it clear that a portrait cannot reveal anything about inner life.
One can conceive of many reasons to cover the eyes of Heydrich (Die Zeit,
1988) with sunglasses, or to frame the face out of the picture
altogether, like in 'Body' (1990), or to concentrate on the
re-presentation of photos meant to show the symptoms of disease on the
face, like in 'Der diagnostische Blick'. But is is also a convenient
trick to conceal impotence. No wonder that Luc Tuymans prefers to paint
moods directly, like in the series 'Embitterment' (1991) which the
describes as 'an emotional self-portrait' 'showing the inside of the
body'.
THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED
Despite all the verbiage about the impotence of the image, the image
always takes revenge on its allegorical or instrumental abuse. And that
goes also for the images of Luc Tuymans. Although they are conceived as
a mere occasion for the breakthrough of 'something terrifying', in the
last resort, only their 'sense of cosiness' remains intact. Luc Tuymans
complains that many onlookers read his paintings as intimistic and
poetic (Heynen*), and tells the anecdote of the German collector who had
interpreted his 'Gas Chamber' as a cosy bathroom. But also the informed
art lover all too readily overlooks the contentual freight of Luc
Tuymans' paintings. Suffices it to refer to Bunny Smedly* who bluntly
declares: 'It was perfectly possible to look at these works and see them
not as sinister, brutal and horrific, but rather as evocative, nostalgic
— even rather beautiful.' Bitterli* muses that, despite the explicit
intentions, Luc Tuymans work 'is about light'. Andrew Lambirth
experiences 'Embitterment', meant to convey rage as 'rather pleasing'
and adds ironically :'I am responding visually to it, rather than
intellectually'. And, whatever story Luc Tuymans might have to tell
about 'TV Set' (2000), in the catalogue to the auction at Sotheby's, it
is simply described as 'an eery, Munch-like landscape that has a nice
feeling of mystery.' ...
It is only the question whether we are dealing here with a wrong lecture
or rather with a lucid perception of an undercurrent in the work of Luc
Tuymans that runs counter his explicit intentions. The sole fact that
Luc Tuymans continues to resort to the brush betrays an addiction to
painting that belies every conceptual rapture. And that goes also for
his description of the act of painting: 'Caressing the painting,
flattening it out. Painting wet in wet. I would not say that every act
derives from sexuality, But a lot is triggered by it' (Aliaga*)
We cannot escape the impression that also the painter in Luc Tuymans
himself is increasingly joining the German collector who descried a cosy
bathroom in 'Gas chamber'.
To begin with, Luc Tuymans seems increasingly reluctant to spin a verbal
cobweb around his paintings. On occasion of his exhibition in the Tate,
he declared: 'Compared to my older paintings, where I tone down the
virtuoso element for the sake of the content, now the painterly aspect
of my work almost has the upper hand' (Heynen*). And indeed, whereas in
the Zeno X, Luc Tuymans has an exhibition old style around the theme of
the Jesuits (Les Revenants, 2007), there is - apart from the already
mentioned smoking room - no trace of political commitment in the
parallel show 'I don't get it' (2007) in the Museum of Photography in
Antwerp. There are no paintings there, only photos and prints (monoprints,
silk screens, lithos) and the focus is on purely plastic qualities. It
is significant that Luc Tuymans images are often better when the photos,
transformed in painting, are transformed in print in their turn - were
it alone for the fact that those clumsy brush strokes of him do not
survive the transformation (not to mention the mastery of the
printer....). And, as the stories around the pictures tone down, the
images become all the more eloquent: just think of a picture like 'Bent
over'.
Also the explicit denial of the virtuoso painting seems to gradually
weaken. Already on some documentary films, we see Luc Tuymans show off
some 'virtuoso' movements with the brush. And it is also apparent from
his increasing preoccupation with the mimetic power of the brush stroke
described above.
It will, finally, not have escaped Luc Tuymans' attention that not only
the uninformed onlookers, but also countless commentators read his
portraits as psychological portraits. For, just like clumsy brushstrokes
can be read as expressive nevertheless, also portraits of people who are
concealing their inner life can be read as psychological portraits. To
be sure, the alibi of transforming photographs continues to be invoked,
like in the series of portraits drawn from memorial photographs (2000).
But it speaks volumes that an informed commentator like Hans Theys
describes Condoleezza Rice's portrait - although it belongs to the
series 'Proper' (2005) that deals with 'fragile America and the
crumbling state of current affairs' - as a 'tribute to a mighty woman of
Afro-American descent'. Also figures like Jerry Saltz do not hesitate to
praise that same portrait as a 'modern Mona Lisa'! Granted, there is
worlds apart from the photo of Heydrich with sunglasses and this modern
Mona Lisa from the Bush administration. I rather prefer Duchamp's
'LHOOQ'... Also the portrait of that young boy from the series 'Les
Revenants' is widely praised. It is painted after a still from the film
'The valley of the doomed' (Road of the Giants). It reminded me
immediately of a photo of Luc Tuymans as a young boy in his Sunday best,
and of a more recent photo where the now adolescent Luc Tuymans points a
revolver to the camera. And also of Luc Tuymans' confession in Trends:
that he has always dreamed of having three costumes made by a top tailor
- of being able to wear the uniform of the more modern elites so to
speak. Talking about self-portraits...
The image takes its revenge. And that revenge is more than sweet. For,
if we leave the overstatements for what they are, Luc Tuymans' works are
no longer understatements, but just paintings like all the other which
have to compete with those of the great masters in the museums. And that
comparison will never be in favour of Luc Tuymans: just hang the 'monumental'
'Still Life' next to Brueghel's modest 'Dulle Griet'.... That is why Luc
Tuymans will never let dry out the verbal ether in which his paintings
thrive. Presently, he is working on a series “Disneyworld”, where this
time not the power of the Jesuits is at stake, but that of advertising.
Perhaps some self-reflection would be nice....
LUC TUYMANS, A MISUNDERSTANDING (1)
Luc Tuymans' painting is much like the relation between his mother in
the resistance and his collaborating father: ambivalent and
contradictory. The man would like to be a painter, does not believe in
painting, dedicates himself to conceptualism, does so with paintings,
draws his motifs from photos, represents them on the canvas, while
overtly despising painting. No outright painter, hence, but rather a
conceptualist/photographer plagued by homesickness for painting. His
work is a half-hearted compromise between an endeavour to revive the
image and the desire not to lose access to the temples of art where,
ever since Marcel Duchamp, the mimetic taboo has been installed. There,
he is all too welcome, precisely because of his flirting with painting,
to alleviate the bad conscience of all those who had all too readily
referred painting to the dustbin.
And, since he is not a genuine painter, it is somewhat out of place to
assert that he would have put painting on the agenda again. Besides,
painting has only been removed from specific agendas: those of that
handful of curators that fly around the world only to meet each other
everywhere. The irony of the whole story is that painting - or the image
- has rather been put on the agenda again by the very black sheep that
has initiated the anti-mimetic spiral in modern art: photography. From
the eighties onwards, it began its unstoppable conquest of galleries and
museum under applause of the public. Also photography had to pay its lip
service to the there reigning anti-mimetic ideology (see
Joel Peter
Witkin and Andreas Gursky). But it is telling for the havoc that has
meanwhile been wreaked, that it is not longer the painters that object
to the ever more severe ban on the image. When the Action Painting
threatened to reduce painting to a kind of expressive writing, it was
Pop Art that tried to restore the image, and when Minimalism (see
Judd)
and Conceptual Art (see Weiner) got the upper hand again, it was the
Neue Wilden that tried to reverse the tide. The advent of figures like
Luc Tuymans, on the other hand, is only the epiphenomenon of a fare more
strong countercurrent that was initiated by photography. The wait is
only for a genuine revolution, that would set free painting and
photography alike from the deadlock in which they have ended up after a
meanwhile more than hundred years old trench war, far away from the
image that they were supposed to produce.
There is not much to be expected from a Luc Tuymans here: if he would
ever turn out to be the virtuoso painter he pretends to have been -
which we only wish were true - he would only price himself out of his
image and of the market.
LES CHARMES SECRETS DE LUC TUYMANS
It remains to be explained why Luc Tuymans has become so popular, not
only with the art lovers, but also by an increasing number of disciples.
Wherein resides that secret charm?
The enthusiasm of the disciples is easy to understand. It is based on a
misunderstanding. Ever since Luc Tuymans made painting respectable again,
they can unabashedly resume painting, with our without the accompanying
stories. Except that of the photos. For these release them of the
difficult task 'of selecting or constructing a motif', as already
Richter confessed. Next, there is the already mentioned ease of painting
in a muted palette and the often cheap charms of wet-in-wet painting.
That explains the fierceness with which the Tuymans-adepts denounce the
Tuymans-clones: they would not have the same profundity. But the
profundity that would discern Luc Tuymans from his clones, is only
disclosed by the verbal comments. Without these comments, we are left
with paintings like all the others, without the discerning profundity.
Precisely because the Tuymans-clones need not bother about spinning
stories around their pictures, their brush work is often far more
interesting. With that breath down his neck, it becomes increasingly
difficult for Luc Tuymans to persist in his ambivalent stance on
painting. Which perhaps explains why he increasingly seems to prefer to
paint without all that conceptual and photographic fuss.
The enthusiasm of the art lovers is based on the same misunderstanding.
Precisely because what at first sight presents itself as a banal animal
piece with a bunch of city pigeons, can be sold as a horrifying history
painting that reveals 'a chilling truth about humankind', they can
unabashedly enjoy the charms of painting, in the full conviction that
they are reflecting on major world problems or on the essence of the
image.
LUC TUYMANS, A MISUNDERSTANDING (2)
But there is more. Many a devotee of Luc Tuymans seems to be addicted to
that nostalgic atmosphere that hangs around Luc Tuymans' paintings - to
the Hopper rather than the Richter in Luc Tuymans. The zooming away from
what is really at stake - the regression from history painting to the
cosiness of the lower genres - is only a first move that clears the way,
not only for the seizure of power by the word, as described above, but
in many cases also for another move, that threatens to remain unnoticed:
the projection of private stories - the gas chamber as a metaphor for
the children's room, as we phrased it earlier. That explains Luc Tuymans
predilection for themes of the past: they pave the way for a
condensation with themes of infancy and youth. There are numerous
examples, but exemplary is the image of Mwana Kitiko - 'the beautiful
boy' - descending from the plane: poor King Bouduain, treated so
stepmotherly by the successor of his beautiful Swedish mother Astrid and
by a father who collaborated with the Germans, who, nearly adult, got
the yoke of the Imperialist heritage of his forefather Leopold II around
his neck! This story not only condenses the political themes of
Imperialism and Nazism, it foremost contains all the elements for a
secret identification of Luc Tuymans with this shy king. For, behind the
now so self-confident Luc Tuymans, a rather shy boy goes hidden, like
the one on the portrait from the series ''Les Revenants', that could
just as well have been a portrait of the young king Bouduain or of Luc
Tuymans as a young boy. While the vague figures and hinted at themes on
Luc Tuymans' canvasses conjure up all kinds of reminiscences in the
private unconscious, the bad conscience about that is alleviated in the
conscious by the the big stories that are woven around the image. Thus,
the onlookers can secretly indulge in self-complaint about the dawn of
the prince in them - in the full conviction that they are dealing with
World Problems.
The emphasis with which Luc Tuymans and his commentators contend that he
would be a history painter, in combination with Luc Tuymans contention
that he is not at all interested in the psychological portrait, and that
he removes himself from the image altogether, reveals a second, more
fundamental misunderstanding: Luc Tuymans' history painting, reduced to
genre painting, is in many cases only a travesty for the enactment of
the infantile drama. There is nothing wrong the latter, even less with a
deliberate combination of the personal and the social or political
level, quite the contrary. Problematic is only the travesty, which does
serve the purpose nor of the gas chamber, nor of the children's room.
That is already apparent from the remarkable lacunas in the subject
matter handled, as pointed out in the beginning of this text.
Thus, it appears that Luc Tuymans is not only a misunderstanding in the
sense that he would have put painting on the agenda again, but also in
the sense that he is not at all dealing with the very subject matter
that made him famous. Or to phrase it otherwise: Luc Tuymans is not only
a crypto-Duchamp, but also a crypto-Hopper.
And in this double misunderstanding resides the double secret charm of
Luc Tuymans: while they can keep up the appearance that they are
reflecting on the essence of the image and the world problems, his
devotees can not only unabashedly indulge in the forbidden charms of
painting, but foremost indulge in a secret self complaint on the child
in them that has been abused. By....
© Stefan Beyst, August 2007;
* See 'some references' below.
** SAUNDERS, Frances Stonor: ' Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the
Cultural Cold War', Granta Books, London
SOME REFERENCES
BERG, Stephan Ed.: 'Luc Tuymans, the Arena', Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2003
DEXTER, Emma en HEYNEN, Julian: 'Luc Tuymans', Tate, 2004.
LOOCK ulrich, ALIAGA Juan Vincente, SPECTOR, Nancy: 'Luc Tuymans',
Phaidon, 1996.
SMEDLEY, Bunny: 'Luc Tuymans at Tate Modern'
STORR, Robert,PIROTTE Philippe en HOET jan (Ed): 'Mwana Kitoko, SMAK,
Gent 2001?
VERMEIREN, Gerrit: 'Luc Tuymans: Proper', David Zwirner, 2005.
TUSA, John: Intervieuw with Luc Tuymans
Added July 2008:
RAUTERBERG, Hanno: 'Schach gemalt, Schwach gedacht' (24.03.2003)
RAUTERBERG, Hanno: 'Was bedeuten diese Bilder' (08.05.2008)
KOENOT, Jan: 'De macht van de Jezuïeten en de onmacht van beelden',
Streven, November 2007.
LAUREYNS, Jeroen: 'Geschilderde geruchten'', Knack, 6 juni 2007.
referrers:
the artist.org
Hornyik Sàndor
Kunstbus
Drawings & Notes
Golden Fiddlr
alan mtichell artblog