Part of the Contemporary Artists series.
Luc Tuymans is a Belgian artist who emerged in the late 1980s. His work fuses the traditions of Old Master Flemish and Spanish genre painting with a late 20th century sensibility. Tuymans' monochromatic palette and choice of subject matter - domestic interiors, commonplace objects or family portraits - link painting with post-war filmmaking and amateur photography. The source of his imagery, however, some of which derives from documentation of Nazi atrocities, gives his canvases a brooding violence. Modest in scale and sensitive in execution, this work is powerful in its haunting evocation of lost lives and repressed histories.
In addition to solo shows in Europe and America, Tuymans' work has featured in important surveys of contemporary painting, such as 'The Broken Mirror' at the Hamburg Deichtorhallen in 1993 and the Hayward Gallery's 'Unbound' in 1994.
Loock uses Tuymans' installation of exhibitions as a way of mapping key themes; Aliaga reveals sources and motivations through his dialogue with the artist; and Spector explores the narrative possibilities of one painting, 'Pillows'. Tuymans selects 'Chevengur', a primitivist, magical tale by Russian author Andrei Platonov, and gives a fascinating account of his work in the essay 'Disenchantment'.
'Contemporary Artists' is a series of authoritative and highly illustrated studies of important artists of the late 20th century. Each title offers a comprehensive survey of individual artists' works. Different genres of art writing are contributed by an international spectrum of authors who are leading figures in their fields, ranging from art history and criticism to philosophy, cultural theory and fiction. Each study provides incisive analyses and multiple perspectives on contemporary art and its inspiration. These are essential source books for everyone concerned with art today.
