The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Wexner Center for the Arts are co-organizing the first major retrospective in the United States of the work of Belgian artist
Luc Tuymans. The exhibition, which will be on view at both institutions in 2007, will
span Tuymans’ entire career. A major tour and publication are also planned.
Born in Belgium in 1958, Tuymans is one of the most highly regarded artists of his generation. He represented his country at the Venice Biennale in 2001, participated in Documenta XI, and is featured in a major exhibition of his work opening at the Tate Modern in London this June. Tuymans explores issues of history and memory, photography and painting in his work, using a muted palette to create paintings that can be enigmatic and disarmingly stark. At the same time, his works evoke a powerful sense of history, investigating such themes as colonialism in the Belgian Congo, the Holocaust, and Christ’s Passion. Tuymans lives and works in Antwerp.