Belgian artist Luc Tuymans is perhaps best known for challenging the post Abstract Expressionism debate about the relevancy of painting by taking on subjects as Belgian colonialism, the Holocaust and the War on Terror. In his tenth exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, The Summer is Over, Tuymans scrutinizes the relevance of capturing reality in painting. Alluding to ghosts of the present and future, the[…..]

As a painter of political ideas—and, often, the grotesque and cruel—Luc Tuymans is a historian of images that appear banal but reveal sinister workings: colored blobs are actually disembodied eyeballs; a bare room with flattened perspective is the site of uncountable murders; a limp cloth turns out to be the emblem of a growing nationalist movement. His first U.S. retrospective, a mid-career survey now at[…..]

I have to admit, there is nothing more impressive to me than a well executed painting, and spending some time with the work of Johannes Kahrs has done nothing but revive this fascination. Living somewhere between film, modern news media and history painting, Kahrs’ work seamlessly merges the beauty and tradition of painting and portraiture with banal yet grotesque objectivity, seducing the viewer into a[…..]