March 2008
Luc Tuyman
Belgian artist Luc Tuymans staged his first solo exhibition in 1985 in a swimming pool. The works were hung along the shallow end, and visitors had to climb inside the pool in order to view them. Visitors to Tuymans’s upcoming exhibition at the Haus der Kunst won’t have to face such exertions, but physical effort wasn’t the point of the pool to begin with. Tuymans’s unique choice of exhibition space manifested the painter’s early awareness of the connection between an individual work and its surroundings. The Haus der Kunst—a museum commissioned by Hitler in order to promote “German art” in 1937—provides a context that is even more charged than other museum spaces. The very title of the exhibition addresses this historical background: “When Springtime is Coming” alludes to a short text by Tuymans about the effects of his works within the spatial context. The essay appeared in a catalogue accompanying a 2001 exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof. For this piece, Tuymans used the same font as the infamous propaganda magazine “Signal,” which depicted the success of the German
Wehrmacht between 1940 and 1945. Just as the catalogue mentioned, paintings by Tuymans are always an intersection of references. Often based on Polaroid photographs, they are inspired by
historical or political events, from World War II
to 9/11. From March 2 through May 12, the Haus der Kunst presents 90 representative works from the past thirty years. Along with paintings by Tuymans—some of which will be on display for the first time—documentary material such as books, newspapers, clippings, sketches and Polaroid photographs will provide deeper insight into the artist’s methods. <<<
