February 06 - May 02, 2010

The retrospective of the work of Belgian contemporary artist Luc Tuymans will be on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from February 6 through May 2, 2010.

Influenced by the Northern European painting tradition as well as by photography, television, and cinema, Luc Tuymans blends filmic techniques with a mastery of painting to explore issues of history, memory, and the mass media. The artist has addressed the lingering effects of World War II, the postcolonial situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the dramatic turn of world events after 9/11, topics that have led him to a sustained investigation of the pathological and the conspiratorial. Making ingenious use of cropping, close-ups, framing, and sequencing, Tuymans's paintings initially suggest relatively innocuous depictions of everyday life - but another meaning almost always lurks beneath their surfaces. This is the first U.S. retrospective for the Belgian artist and the most comprehensive presentation of his work to date, with approximately 75 key paintings from 1985 to the present.

Luc Tuymans is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus.

More information:
www.sfmoma.org

Image:  Luc Tuymans, The Secretary of State, 2005; oil on canvas; 18 x 24 1/4 in. (45.7 x 61.5 cm); Collection the Museum of Modern Art, New York, promised gift of David and Monica Zwirner; courtesy David Zwirner, New York; © Luc Tuymans