ucTuymans takesa seat at a longwhitedesk inhisAntwerp studioand lightsa
cigarette. Onanygivenday, hewill smoke twoandahalf packsofMarlboros, take
two showers–notwhile smoking–andcompleteanentirepainting if hehappens
tobeworkingonone.
“Thepainting ritual isnot something that hasbeencalculated, but something
that grewover time,”he says. “It’sa verynervousprocess, all about intensityand
intention, which iswhy it has tohappen inaday.”Tuymanshasbeenmakingart for
over threedecades, but noamount of repetitioncanassuage theprocess: “the first
threehoursofworkingarealwayshell.”
Tuymans’ subjectmatter is just as fraught ashismethodology. Hailedas
the saviour of painting in the 1990s, andnowanartworldmonolith (hisportfolio includes
theVeniceBiennale, DocumentaandaTateModern solo show), hemakespainterlyyet
conceptual worksabout loaded topics likeBelgium’scolonial past and theHolocaust.
Rather thanconfronting themdirectly, however, hisworks relyonunderstatement–
zooming inonbanal detailsandobscuring themwithawashed-out, blurrypalette. Inhis
workDieZeit, SSGeneral ReinhardHeydrich isdepictedasacut-outwithpainted-on
sunglasses,while the innocuous-lookingGaskamer couldbemistaken for anordinarycellar.
His latestwork, whichwill appear inAntwerp’sRoyal Atheneum thismonth, is just as
oblique. FoundedbyNapoleonBonaparte, theAtheneumwas thecity’s first pluralistic
