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| "No. 7 Needles" (1975) oil on canvas |
Like many of his paintings, Luc Tuymans is a man easily misunderstood. At first glance, the tall and hulking Belgian seems more like the president of a stodgy old European corporation than the internationally acclaimed avant-garde artist that he is. Tuymans, 42, moves slowly, purposefully, and when he looks you in the eye, it is as if he is examining you. He speaks in a measured, deep voice, and if you make a little joke Luc Tuymans does not laugh.
I must confess that the first time I saw Tuymans' work a few years ago I incorrectly ascribed it to the school of "Bad" painting, which, seriously, is a genre of contemporary art and not a critical commentary. The "Bad" painters, who took their name from a 1978 New Museum of Contemporary Art show in New York, were intentionally crude in their approach, more so even than the Art Brut painters of a generation earlier.
But I was wrong about Tuymans, and I was reminded of this while strolling through the current Tokyo Opera City exhibition "Sincerely," which is the first major Japanese retrospective of the artist's enigmatic oeuvre.
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