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62 Modern Painters october 2012 blouinartinfo.com blouinartinfo.com october 2012 Modern Painters 63 A Q&A with Luc Tuymans I had returned from Chicago just a few days before visiting the Belgian artist for the first time at his Antwerp studio. While in the United States, it was remarkable to hear people talking about his 2010–11 retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago many months after it had closed. Leading up to his two exhibitions later this autumn at David Zwirner’s gallery spaces in London (October 5–November 17) and New York (November 1–December 19), I discussed with Tuymans a number of subjects that come out of his two new bodies of work, including the questions they raise around the romanticized life of artists, the recurring issue of otherness in his work, and how a talking parrot in a charmingly ramshackle tapas bar close to his studio inspired the title for a series of new paintings.

Luc Tuymans: The whole idea around this of the work. Now this is in itself quite a stupid close to St. Paul’s Square, where I go group of work came about accidentally. movie, but what’s interesting and what I because I am not recognized there, a sort James Lingwood [co-director of Artangel remember from it, is that right before the of marginal bar. And the owners have a in London] asked me to make a painting for end there is a sequence that is completely parrot, which is of course also colorful. this cabin. There are now actually seven improbable. This is the sequence out of And when you come in, the parrot always of those paintings, one still in the cabin. which I took the stills for the imagery in says, in the Antwerp slang, “Allo!”—and Normally it would’ve been a one-off. The the painting series. A doctor with a very that’s the title of the show. idea for the cabin was loosely based on the thick German accent comes into the village boat that figures in Joseph Conrad’sHeart where the main character is already Nav Haq: Is the bar by any chance of Darkness: In the book Kurtz says that deceased and this native woman is rolling called Amberes? he has made paintings, and so Lingwood in the sand, and then he goes into the Amberes, yes. The idea was to turn around asked me to do something. But all of a hut and we get this colorful view of all the exotic. What’s also important is that sudden I got this idea: I remembered the works, which are mock-ups of there is always my reflection in the image, this film from 1942 with George Sanders Gauguins, of course. So my idea was to parts of my head or shoulders. that was based on The Moon and Sixpence prolong the imagery, to make more of it. by Somerset Maugham. Sanders’s char- It’s a joke on modernism, basically. Can you tell me about the acter was loosely based on Paul Gauguin. The other imagery—that still has to be New York show? It was the very first, or a very early, repre- made—likewise all deals with the idea of It’s called “The Summer is Over,” and it’s all sentation of artists within a Hollywood light, the idea of projection, and the idea about the proximity of things and the fact framework, and they are shown as extremely of early film and color and so on. that they become impenetrable. All these egoistic and, of course, fully immoral, but The title of the London show actually paintings: my leg, a chair, the window above in the end everything is forgiven because comes from a parrot. There is a bar here, the door of the façade, which is opposite the

By Nav Haq photograph By angus r. shamal

62 Modern Painters october 2012 blouinartinfo.com blouinartinfo.com october 2012 Modern Painters 63 64 Modern Painters Modern 52½ x 72 in. Allo! I O il il on canvas, , 2012. october 2012 october artist, and do the one other doesn’t that. artist, film,but italso refers to afilm about an could say is referential because it refers to that links the shows: The one in London you That’s an point. interesting There is an idea one from your own everyday reality. in the filmand, if youlike, the mundane artist. two on perspectives the life of an It sounds as if the two shows represent shows are totally different. with things that are The two monumental. and abstraction and figuration, working on the It’s verge between working about except the physicality of these elements. anything without a network, closed very here spectator the the because idea, a destroying sense in of the artists, position romanticizing go can’t you that idea the about Yes. It’s than the others. T which is my self-portrait, called these will all hang opposite only one painting, filmstill onprojected the studio wall. And façade where I live, a piece of my jacket, an old he he portrait is a slightly smaller scale blouinartinfo.co T he he romantic representation is the artist. It make will the artist. m Me .

because they have to be dispersed. They’re to be good in itself. I never do either, series, make these six one paintings—every has of them, because it was quite hard for me to these That’s paintings. also why I made six do, but I don’t to wanted do it in actually I which to go myself over my contrasts, is that for the paintings in I London, forced What introverted. interests me particularly extroverted and very the New York, very is show You say the London could specific references. were interested to work with these why about you I’mcurious film. really Sixpence of end the toward reference the moment transformative A color is floatingon top of the image. the like almost artificial, highly looks now it but a spectacle, quite really paintings, at the time I’m sure was to in the color. relation especially in moments cinema, transformative in a pick up the sense, paintings on the I have to ask about the filmicaspect of T he he use of lso lso with the “ L ondon ondon show, because it looks like, where it becomes a color a color it becomes where T echnicolor with echnicolor the flower A llo!” llo!” paintings, they The Moon and Moon The

in post-colonial in theory. post-colonial colonial colonial relationship to the Congo. It Belgium’s reference that paintings I’m thinking in about particular the is not new in work. your imperialism otherness that came with European In a way, this idea of the of projection of exoticism and abuse. That’s why they use Gauguin as an example He also fucked these women, of course. tion of women in matter, the particularly representa- him of being exoticist with his subject how people discuss his life and work place, particular mainly in relation to interesting. I think the they were as all hand-colored, in film. in the way they were made, because in fact followed the idea of the Also projection. So I really painting. the within areas of the color and the qualities of the darkest reverse in order to findthe right strength I Here, had into to the contrasts. do the with starting the lightest color, and then go I paint Normally in reverse. made also G auguin auguin reference is quite H e occupies a very e occupies T ahiti. P eople eople accuse

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Davi d Z wi r n er “ th position light. light. If I lived in California or Spain, it would for the worse. What’s really important is the city where I was It born. has a changed lot F artisticsignificantlegacy. A here, I’m inclined to ask you about Y Because the paintings for your space where the New York show is. But it’s not, by any means, the size of the say, because the walls are high. reasonably It’s I space, a A have house. to generous L I got the sense that the space in that more intimate space. these sorts of exotic elements displayed in in a habitat. I think it’s important to have a gallery space. The show in London is clearly the to instigation get them back together. they are there dispersed, will always be that’s the worst When nightmare. possible the work is already there in its entirety, at October that’s a mistake. Think of Gerhard being kept together, but, as I said, I think series [for London] there was this talk of its on its own. be kept together. I never feel a body of work should necessarily presented together? Does this body of work need to be it’s beautifying, just matter-of-fact. not of the self—it’s portrayal unforgiving falls on it. On the other hand, it’s a sort of thing about the is self-portrait the light that glasses, so you cannot enter. And the good me with the where iPhone, you also have my comes from a my photograph wife took of and the self-portrait of side the street, atlooking this broken glass on the other In one I’m idea that you penetrate. cannot the at and, time, the same the vicinity Yes, all from This Antwerp. is a show about T tion seem to focus on your daily life. T harshness of the paintings themselves. believing in that type of exoticism—that is Yes,the that’s in there. It also shows thedoes inform these idiocy paintings as ofwell. seems as if this question of otherness or me, historically, it sure has. It’s also the ondon ondon has more of a domestic scale. he he paintings in the hey must all be hey from must ork ork show are so rooted in the locale ntwerp, a place that has a has that very a place ntwerp, moma you Also, the show in New York is clearly in . . But when are they shown? Because cycle, fantastic works that are now e E ven ven with the monochrome sp

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