Listening to Luc Tuymans’ interview with Ben Luke on A Brush With… in the car yesterday, I was fascinated by his regular use of a cinematic or almost narrative framework for making his shows. Which sounds distinct from making paintings for a show, although there are apparently paintings that function a specific way in a show, as a start, or a coda. But there is also a crucial structure or sequence, a context that is somehow foundational to a show and the work in it, yet which is unarticulated, or seemingly completely unacknowledged.
And what struck me was that after the show is done, and the works are sold and scattered, this vital structure disappears forever. The paintings are set adrift, left on their own.
Working toward a show and planning a show is not unusual; it even makes a lot of sense. Considering how works in a show will be situated and seen in space and time is also extremely normal. But there was something oddly specific about Tuymans’ discussion of his narrative approach that set it apart; it stuck, but we all moved on.
Then toward the end of the conversation, Tuymans talked about preparing for a show, and then a dealer came and picked some works to take to an art fair, and in the process, wrecked the whole show.
[I’m paraphrasing here, partly because the transcript is not readily available, but mostly because Tuymans also made a throwaway comment about not being “a primadonna, and I always meet my deadlines,” and I am past a deadline on a piece I’ve been stuck on, and typing just to type is a way to break the jam, but also, I’m hoping feeling called out by someone who’s always sounded arrogant to me, and who, frankly, I did kind of imagine as a primadonna, will also get me finished on this damn thing.]
Anyway, Tuymans then said he switched to making art fair work, paintings which exist on their own, conceived as orphans, and void of whatever the narrative structure or context of a show might give them. He went on to say they weren’t exactly lesser works, but…a different priority. [This feels important to get right, and I’ll come back and add the actual quote after a relisten. UPDATE: OK, here.]
Ben Luke: “When you make a work for an art fair, does it differ at all in terms of… do you approach it differently from the subject matter point of view?”
Luc Tuymans: “Yes, because it’s a singular work, or singular works, that are somehow related to what I’m thinking at that moment what could be relevant or not, but it has a different stance. I mean, it doesn’t have the same priority, let’s put it that way, as a show.”
But there is a whole unspoken category of Luc Tuymans Art Fair Paintings, and maybe looking at them alongside/in contrast to his real paintings will be a productive exercise as curators construct narratives of their own.