Friday, February 22, 2008

notes from luc tuymans

"Painted time is a different zone. This is why I don't believe that a painting -although I've been accused of it many times now- can be truly topical. A painting's physicality gives it a different persistence and a different perception. If you ask people to remember a painting and a photograph, their description of the photograph is far more accurate than that of the painting. Strangely enough, there is a physical element intertwined with the painting. It shakes loose an emotional element within the viewer, which is different than with a photograph."
...
" Life is politics, basically, but you don't just go to a gallery and put the words 'art' and 'politics' on the wall. An artwork should point in more than one direction, not be this sort of placating, self demonstrating, witnessing element. It is not important to convince people; they should convince themselves, they should look with their own eyes."
...
"When you feel concentrated within the intensity of making paintings, you know exactly what you are doing. When I start to paint, it is real agony, I get nervous. The day before I am already working up to it. Then I get to the studio, and once the image starts to emerge and come together, pleasure kicks in. And then you can see things that no other person can see. And then the most important things in the painting become these small details. Every painting has a weakness and a breaking point, where the essence of a painting lies. In my case it is never in the centre. "

Conversation with Wilhelm Sasnal, Art Review, Issue 19

No comments: