Luc Tuymans
Maypole
2000, Oil on Canvas
224 x 116cm

I owe this discovery to Okwui Enwezor via this excellent review of the Istanbul Biennial.

If media images inadequately depict the horrors of reality, then Tuymans’ paintings are even more disturbingly detached. Often taking his imagery from published photos (of war, violence, subjugation), the paintings are the antithesis of this historic iconography: dull tones, vague, nondescript scenes, stripped of emotional propaganda.

Maypole suggests only the mistiest remnants of a memory: men in lederhosen raising a mast (Cross?), flags waving in the distance ? they could be scouts, pioneers, morris dancers or Hitler Youth. Though it’s painted with the faded language of nostalgia, Maypole is strangely empty: void of sympathy or moral, Tuymans renders a scene twice-removed, making it impulsively human.

Without context of history or source, the viewer is left to engage with the painting on a purely instinctive level; being drawn into the evils of history, he adopts his own role as a silent and willing observer.

[P.S. Ila and her father are going to be away on vacation till the middle of next week. No blogging!]