LUC TUYMANS (b. 1958) FISH oil on canvas 26

PROPERTY FROM A EUROPEAN COLLECTION

Provenance
White Cube, LONDON

Exhibited
LONDON, White Cube, LUC TUYMANS: SPLENDID ISOLATION, May 28-July 17, 1999

Literature
H. Luard, ed., WHITE CUBE: THE ARTISTS 2002-1993, GOTTIGEN, p. 61 (illustrated)

PICTURES, IF THEY HAVE TO HAVE AN EFFECT, MUST HAVE THE TREMENDOUS INTENSITY OF SILENCE

H. LUARD ED., WHITE CUBE: THE ARTISTS 2002-1993, GÖTTINGEN, P. 60

TUYMANS' ART IS FULL OF CONTENT BUT NOT IN THE FORM OF IDEAS. IT'S THINKING IS MORE VISUAL THAN VERBAL, AS MUCH TACTILE AND CORPOREAL AS VISUAL, MORE PRECONSCIOUS THAN ARTICULATE. TUYMANS' PICTURES ARE IMPURE. THEY LACK URBANITY OR SMOOTHNESS. HIS PAINTINGS GENERALLY SEEM MORE LIKE EPHEMERAL NOTATIONS THAN CONCERTED WORKS. OFTEN THE COMPOSITIONS ARE SKELETAL. DETAILS ARE LACKING OR WHOLE PARTS OF THE IMAGE MAY BE ELIDED. THE IMAGES TEND TO BE LOOSE AND TO FLOAT TENTATIVELY…ON EMPTY FIELDS. G. Salzman, LUC TUYMANS, TORONTO, 1994, p. 11

In 1999, White Cube Gallery in London mounted an exhibition of Tuymans' paintings entitled SPLENDID ISOLATION. A turn of the 19th century term "Splendid Isolation" is typically used to describe Great Britain's isolationist foreign policy but is still loosely applied to the present state of cultural and political affairs (H. Luard, ibid.). It is not uncommon for Tuymans to develop a series of paintings directly relating to the location of a specific exhibition. For the SPLENDID ISOLATION exhibition he painted four works of which the present lot is included–the remaining three being: a portrait of a man, a stylized illuminated interior, and a white shirt.

There is nothing spontaneous about his working method–Tuymans continuously analyzes and distils the image. The artist has described how in his work, one image in a series generates another, and that each image is formulated and then reformulated.

"Before I begin painting, I am in an extremely agitated state. During the actual execution, I experience enormous pleasure, but before that, it's sheer agony. The act of painting really involves a kind of aggression or violence" (ibid.).

Tuymans, with his unique treatment of medium and compositional elements, possesses the uncanny ability to instill in his paintings an air of disquieting emotion and the sense that there are indeed violent or sinister underpinnings lying below the thin layer of pigment. The spectral, almost supernatural light cast upon the fish and the treatment of the outline reinforces this lingering invisible specter of disquietude.

By cropping the image field and using a muted color palette, Tuymans has elevated the normally banal image of "fish" to an entirely new level. Tuymans FISH is an intriguing and confounding work that cries out for inspection, and compells the audience to subject the work to an intense visual interrogation and personal introspection. The work raises many questions: Just what does the fish symbolize? What is its relation to the other works in the exhibition? How does it fit into the concept of "Splendid Isolation"? How is Tuymans,' with simplicity of form and palette, able to so easily manipulate our emotions?