Output details

Distant toys, dissected bodies and reality TV: Luc Tuymans and painting in the age of ritual and new media

Brief Description

This article examines the work of Belgian painter Luc Tuymans and the manner in which his work deals with the correlation between photography/film and painting. Tuymans has been described as one of the most influential artists in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century who has had an immense impact on other painters, often described as ‘Tuymans Effect’ (Kantor 2004). The article is significant in that it fundamentally rethinks the relationship between painting, photography and new media within Tuymans’ work.

Research Rationale

Focusing on the work of Luc Tuymans, the article explores the relationship between painting and photography in 21st century artistic practice in a new way. The article uses Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility’ as a theoretical framework to scrutinise the impact of photography on Tuymans’ work, and his use of new technology and media in his paintings in recent years. It investigates to what extent the relationship is marked by aspects such as fallibility of representation, visual fragmentation and the ubiquitous deviation from norms.

Strategies Undertaken

The article deals in more general terms with the restriction and limitation of painting as artistic means. This reflects a wider strand within my research that probes the relationship between the artist, the tools and the materials of production in contemporary painting. This research strand has been developed through a series of further presentations/publications at international conferences: ‘Movement, Aesthetics, Ontology: IV Annual Conference on the New Materialisms’, 16-17 May 2013, University of Turku, Finland; ‘Melancholy Minds and Painful Bodies: Genealogy, Geography, Pathogeny’, University of Liverpool, 9-11 July 2013.