The first U.S. retrospective of the work of Belgian contemporary artist Luc Tuymans—and the most comprehensive presentation of his work to date—will be on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from February 6 through May 2, 2010, in its only West Coast presentation. Jointly organized by SFMOMA and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Luc Tuymans features approximately 75 key paintings from 1978 to the present and reunites works from important series as initially set out by the artist, thus restoring intended dialogue among the works.

Luc Tuymans, “Chalk”, 2005. Oil on canvas. Collection of SFMOMA, promised gift of Pat and Bill Wilson. ©Luc Tuymans. Photo: Ben Blackwell

The exhibition debuted at the Wexner Center in September 2009. Following its SFMOMA presentation, Luc Tuymans will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art (June 6 to September 5, 2010), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (October 2, 2010, to January 9, 2011), and the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (February 10 to May 8, 2011). The retrospective is cocurated by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (and former SFMOMA Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture), and Helen Molesworth, Maisie K. and James R. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museum (and former chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts). A definitive catalogue accompanies the retrospective.

Luc Tuymans (born 1958) is considered by many to be one of the most significant painters working today, and his distinctive visual style and approach to issues of history and memory have influenced an entire generation of younger artists. Interested in the aftereffects of some of the most traumatic events of the last and present century and their representation in the mass media, Tuymans uses a muted palette to create paintings that are at once sumptuous and subtle, enigmatic and disarmingly stark.

Born and raised in Antwerp, where he continues to live and work, Tuymans draws on the historical traditions of Northern European painting as well as photography, cinema, and television. He appropriates images from a variety of sources and makes use of cropping, close-ups, framing, and sequencing to offer fresh perspectives on the medium of painting as well as larger cultural issues. Whether interiors, landscapes, or figural representations, his works might initially suggest relatively innocuous depictions of everyday life—but there is almost always another meaning lurking beneath their surfaces. Like veiled memories, Tuymans’s paintings oscillate between coherence and illegibility, challenging viewers’certainty about not only what they are looking at but also how they should be looking.

Perhaps best-known for his early work on the Holocaust, the artist has turned more recently to such topics as the postcolonial history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the dramatic turn of world events after 9/11, and the role of institutional religion in an increasingly secular world. These series have led Tuymans to a sustained investigation of the realms of the pathological and the conspiratorial. Throughout, he has remained committed to representing the unrepresentable in order to make viewers recognize their role as spectators—and often unwilling accomplices—to history.

“Tuymans is a crucial figure in contemporary art, yet he remains relatively unknown to broader audiences in the United States,” says SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra. “SFMOMA has a long track record of presenting important artists at pivotal moments in their careers, and we are thrilled to partner with the Wexner Center to bring this timely exhibition of Tuymans’s work to San Francisco and to other museums nationwide.”

“Without question, the time is ripe for an in-depth retrospective of Tuymans’s work in this country,” says Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin. “We are pleased to collaborate with SFMOMA on this exhibition, which is certain to reveal new insights into the creative, intellectual, and political impulses behind the artist’s utterly unique, often serial approach to painting.”

The exhibition at SFMOMA reconstructs the early genesis of the artist’s distinctive process, highlighting the way in which he moves fluidly from one painting to the next. Because Tuymans experimented with filmmaking early in his career, his strategy draws from theories of filmic montage: one image links to another, and additional meaning is conveyed by the pieces’ adjacency. This retrospective re-creates the original installations of four groups of interrelated paintings—At Random, Der Architekt, Mwana Kitoko: Beautiful White Man, and Proper—which the artist intended to be hung in a particular order.

Tuymans treats genres including still life, landscape, and portraiture with the same scale and gravity once reserved for grand history painting. Indeed, Tuymans may be said to have reinvented history painting for the present day, using moments from the recent past to shed light on the fragile nature of events. In depicting contemporary scenarios through this traditional painting genre, he also explores disengagement from current realities and the ways in which the contemporary experience is often dramatically mediated by both technology and longstanding cultural narratives.

The artist’s series At Random explores the subject of perception and disorienting shifts in visual understanding. Shapes and outlines in these paintings emerge slowly from hazy backgrounds. Sometimes the title of a work helps bring a recognizable object into focus, as in the case of the The Doll (1994), which first appears to be a misty Northern landscape. It’s only after reading the title and spending time in front of the canvas that it reveals more. The pictures that make up At Random seem exactly that: arbitrary and pulled from the stream of images one constantly encounters. A girl’s leg (in The Leg [1994]), a glimpse through a window (in Self-Portrait [1994])—each may seem insignificant and normally quickly forgotten, but perhaps each conceals some secret within.

Der Architekt (The Architect), Tuymans’s series devoted to the Holocaust, is the artist’s most comprehensive treatment of this recurring topic in his oeuvre, yet the viewer is unlikely to come away with a better understanding of the atrocities that the word encompasses. This reflects Tuymans’s larger point—that certain events defy representation.These mostly monochromatic canvases set up a visual correlation between the Nazi obsession with Aryan purity and the depravity of their actions. Himmler (1998) draws on an official photographic portrait of SS official Heinrich Himmler, who oversaw the concentration camps. The details of his face, however, have been obscured, leaving only an impenetrable blur. A rich and significant image, Gaskamer (Gas Chamber [1986]) at first seems to be a rough sketch of a nondescript room until one reads the caption. Only then do the dots on the ceiling register as showerheads. By comparison, K.Z. (1998) is perhaps clearer, as the title is an abbreviation of the German term for concentration camp. But it too turns out to be misleading, showing only a portion of a camp specifically designed to hide its actual conditions from foreign inspectors.

In the series Mwana Kitoko: Beautiful White Man, Tuymans confronts the violent legacy of his native Belgium’s involvement in the Congo, which was a Belgian colony from 1908 to 1960. This suite centers on the postcolonial situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the shadowy networks of power linked to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of that country. The Mission (2000) depicts the place where both Lumumba and his political rival Joseph-Désiré Mobutu were educated. Chalk (2000) references a story Tuymans heard about a police officer who pulled two teeth from Lumumba’s mouth after his death. Sculpture (2000) brings this historical narrative into the present by depicting a life-size painted wood sculpture, a relic of the colonial era that Tuymans encountered by chance in a restaurant in Antwerp.

The retrospective also gathers a selection of paintings from Tuymans’s post-9/11 series entitled Proper, which includes his unmistakable painting of Condoleezza Rice, The Secretary of State (2005). Looking at American society and the Bush administration, Proper explores the artist’s view of a country struggling to right itself and, in the process, clinging to propriety in order to maintain an image of strength and normalcy. Ballroom Dancing (2005) portrays the newly revived phenomenon of its title, conveying the trappings of old-fashioned romance and gender roles in an image based on a photograph of the Texas Governor’s Ball. The odd observation angle of The Parc (2005) suggests the view from a security camera and so exposes the way surveillance has permeated daily life. Billowing clouds of dust in Demolition (2005) recall the destruction of 9/11 but can also be seen as a metaphor for the confusion that prevents events from being seen clearly.

In addition, the exhibition includes works from Tuymans’s Der diagnostische Blick (The Diagnostic View) series, which he based on images found in a German physician’s guide to physical manifestations of various diseases and ailments. With these works, Tuymans draws attention to the medium of painting itself, emphasizing the tensions between the handcraft of painting and the mechanical eye of photography.

www.sfmoma.org

The Museum of Modern Art presents Action! Design over Time, a new installation of the contemporary section of The Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries, beginning on February 5, 2010. Organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, and Patricia Juncosa-Vecchierini and Kate Carmody, Curatorial Assistants, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, the installation brings together some 85 examples from the collection that reveal the dynamic and evolving nature of objects, providing a deeper understanding of contemporary design.

Objects are not still, and yet design is often appreciated in terms of its static presence—both aesthetic and functional—in any given instant, without much consideration of the process of its making, trajectory in time, life cycle, or relationship with people. Some of the objects in the exhibition embody frozen moments in time, whether crafted by hand (like Ingo Maurer’s Porca Miseria! Chandelier (1994), which is made of broken dishes) or crystallized by a computer using a digital manufacturing machine (as with Ammar Eloueini’s CoReFab chair from 2006). Instead of a single moment, other featured objects capture entire life cycles: Christien Meindertsma’s book PIG 05049 (2004–06) tracks all 185 products made from a single pig, while Michele Gauler’s Digital Remains (2006) comprises urns containing the images, music, and documents from dead friends’ and relatives’ computers. Some examples focus on communication and interaction design, whose nature is inherently active and dynamic. These interfaces and visualizations interpret and render data over time—commercial air traffic in the United States (Aaron Koblin’s Flight Patterns, 2005), taxi traffic in San Francisco (Stamen Design’s Cabspotting: New Year’s Eve 2007, 2005–ongoing), or the editorial evolution of Wikipedia entries (Fernanda Bertini Viégas and Martin Wattenberg’s History Flow, 2003), for instance—in an elegant and efficient way.

The design firm Freedom Of Creation has taken rapid manufacturing into the realm of textiles. Neither woven nor traditionally sewn, the laser-sintered textiles (2000–06) in the exhibition are built three-dimensionally, layer by layer. Because they are designed on a computer, their threads digitally interwoven, they are easily customizable in various patterns, sizes, and colors.

The exhibition also includes The Honeycomb Vase ―Made by Bees‖ (2006) by Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny of Studio Libertiny. It was produced through what the artist has called ―slow manufacturing‖: Libertiny constructed a vase-shaped beehive scaffold (to be removed at the end of the process) and then let nature take its course. Forty thousand bees built the vase, layer by layer, in one week.

As technology advances, designers are taking a closer look at future human interaction with robots. The exhibition includes Technological Dreams Series: no 1, Robots (2007), by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, a project that explores mankind’s future interaction with robots. The designers look at robots as needy, moody characters with their own distinct personalities and quirks, considering the possibility that devices of the future might not be designed for specific tasks but instead might be given jobs based on behaviors and qualities that emerge over time.

Commissioned for the Museum’s exhibition Workspheres in 2000, My Soft Office is a series of products Hella Jongerius conceived in response to the changing dynamic of work life. Her designs are often characterized by their seamless combination of apparent opposites, such as old and new, fast and slow, high- and low- tech, or, in this case, family life and work life. For My Soft Office Jongerius has redesigned traditional domestic objects—such as a TV dinner tray—so they can accommodate both work and family use.
Some objects are designed to grow from a ―starter‖—often an algorithm fueled by software—their growth interrupted by the designer at a designated moment to be rendered in a visual or physical form. Neri Oxman, an architect, established Materialecology(2007) to undertake interdisciplinary research in the intersection between architecture, engineering, computation, and ecology; she is represented in the exhibition by four recent speculations about the intrinsic qualities of natural structures indicate a direction for future applied research.

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400

www.moma.org

Image: Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny, The Honeycomb Vase “Made by Bees”. 2006. Beeswax. Manufactured by Studio Libertíny, The Netherlands. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Aaron and Betty Lee Stern Foundation.

Birds of New York and the Paintings of Louis Agassiz Fuertes at the New York State Museum showcases the original watercolors painted a century ago by one of America’s foremost science artists.

The exhibition, in the Museum’s Crossroads Gallery, will be open through September 6. It will feature 40 of more than 100 paintings that Fuertes created to illustrate Birds of New York, a monumental book that combined beautiful art and scientific scholarship. The first edition of the book will be on display, along with a print portfolio and specimens from the Museum’s ornithology collection.

Red-Throated Loon , Common Loon, Arctic Loon , 1906-1909, by Louis Agassiz Fuertes New York State Museum photo

The first volume of Birds of New York – Water Birds and Game Birds – was published to much acclaim in 1910. Volume Two – Land Birds – followed four years later. Birds of New York was collaboration between Fuertes and author Elon Howard Eaton and served as a model for ornithology books that followed. Fuertes’ watercolors celebrated the beauty of wild birds, while Eaton advocated for the stewardship and conservation of birds and their habitats. Produced by the State Museum and published by the University of the State of New York, the book inspired the citizens of New York to observe and care for the state’s birds.

The book was commissioned by former State Museum Director John Mason Clarke, who served from 1904 to 1925. When he began his tenure it had been 60 years since the last book on the state’s birds had been published, and he wanted a new study that would update scientific knowledge. He commissioned Eaton, a biology teacher in Rochester, to research and write the book. Eaton enlisted Fuertes, a famous bird artist from Ithaca, to provide the illustrations.

Clarke’s written correspondence with Eaton and Fuertes, preserved in the New York State Archives, reveals that Clarke was a guiding force in producing the book, sometimes attending to even small details.

Named for the naturalist Louis Agassiz, Fuertes’ interest in the natural world was encouraged and he began to draw birds at an early age. He attended Cornell University in Ithaca. While still a student, Fuertes met a prominent Smithsonian ornithologist who recognized and promoted his artistic talent. This helped launch an active career and, soon, he was considered to be the leading bird artist of his day.

Just as John James Audubon inspired bird painters in the early 1800s, Fuertes influenced artists a century later by skillfully capturing the lifelike poses and natural settings of birds. Roger Tory Peterson, an avian artist and author of well-known field guides, wrote that while Audubon was famous for his dramatic compositions Fuertes “caught more of the character of the bird itself.”

Eaton also was a lifelong student of natural history. As a young man he prepared bird mounts and studied skins after enrolling in a taxidermy course. He established the Department of Biology at Hobart College in Geneva, where he taught from 1908 until his death in 1934. In 1901 he became known statewide when the Rochester Academy of Science published a paper he had written on the birds of western New York.

The lasting scientific importance of Birds of New York stems from Eaton’s authoritative compilation of original research that is included in the book, such as distribution maps, migration surveys and detailed observations of nests, eggs, songs and behaviors. The book continues to be cited by ornithologists studying changes in bird abundance and distribution since that time.

It also has strengthened interest in the study and protection of birds, and spurred the formation of local birding clubs and bird sanctuaries. Sixteen thousand copies of a print portfolio, including all of the color illustrations in the book, were widely distributed and inspired “Bird Day” celebrations across the state.

The State Museum will sponsor a free program in connection with the exhibition. Creative Art Day will be held Sunday, March 28 from 1 to 3 p.m. Families will be invited to participate in artful activities based on the exhibition. More information is available by calling 518-473-7154 or e-mailing psteinba@mail.nysed.gov.

The Birds of New York book is available online through the New York State Library’s digital collections at http://www.nysl.nysed.gov. A video tour of the Museum’s biology range, that includes its bird collection, is available at http://www.youtube.com/nysmuseum.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov

The Harn Museum of Art is joining in the celebration of Black History Month by offering Journey through Africa during Museum Nights on Feb. 11 and a gallery talk by Susan Cooksey, Harn curator of African art, Feb. 14.

“Black History Month is a time for everyone to celebrate and learn about black history and culture in Africa and the Americas,” Harn Director Rebecca Nagy said.

From 6 to 9 p.m. Feb. 11, visitors are invited to journey through Africa at Museum Nights. They will have the opportunity to participate in art-making activities with Adinkra stamps, search for works by African artists in a museum-wide scavenger hunt and listen to African folk tales by Baba Ono.

Visitors may try on African garments and jewelry, and learn the proper way to wear traditional African dress. Food will be provided by Reggae Shack.

Throughout the evening, Agbedidi, a group comprised of University of Florida students majoring in dance, music and theatre, will perform African dances accompanied by drummers. After the performance, visitors will have the opportunity to play the drums.

The University of Florida’s Pazeni Sauti Africa Choir also will perform African choral music.

Museum Nights is an ongoing program made possible by the generous support of the University of Florida Honors Program and Student Government. The Harn gratefully acknowledges the additional program funding on Feb. 11 by the Center for African Studies.

At 3 p.m. Feb. 14, Susan Cooksey, curator of African art, will lead a gallery talk focusing on A Sense of Place: African Interiors. The exhibition features objects from homes, palaces, shrines and other sacred places in Africa. Contextual images accompany each display and give the viewer a sense of how art enhances and defines spaces for everyday activities, worship and royal courts.

For more information call 352-392-9826 or visit www.harn.ufl.edu.
Images from A Sense of Place: African Interiors are located here: http://www.harn.ufl.edu/africaninteriors.html

Six of Austin Art Space’s resident artists have joined together to support services that enhance the independence and quality of life for older adults. Each artist has donated a work that will be auctioned off by the Faith in Action Caregivers-Southwest Austin on February 18, 2010. Other auction items include prized wines and personal leisure experiences.

The style of art ranges widely, as does the medium: from pen and ink to pastel to oil to photography. And, the pieces vary in size from 11 inches by 14 inches up to 16 inches by 20 inches making them suitable for numerous locations in a home or office. All are from locally recognized Austin-based artists. Artists that want to give back to the community.

The artists contributing their work are: Jan Knox, Orion Knox, Marilyn Rea Nasky, Terry Starnes, Valerie Walden and Deborah Willhite. These artists have been recognized with awards and inclusion in exhibits by numerous entities including the Austin Visual Arts Association, Austin Pastel Society, Plein Air Austin, Waterloo Watercolor Group, Creative Arts Society, Wimberley Valley Art League, East Austin Studio Tour, Arthouse at Jones Center, North Hills Gallery, Art Exchange Gallery, Texas State Capitol Rotunda, Barton Creek Country Club, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Valerie Walden, manager of the Austin Art Space co-operative commented, “This is our second year and the number of artists participating keeps growing. This is such a good cause and so localized. Literally 100% of the net proceeds will help our older adults continue to live independently in their homes.”

The Faith in Action Caregivers – Southwest Austin is a is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. The auction is one of the organization’s major fund raisers. The intimate event is held in the home of a volunteer. Attendance is by invitation only. Details are available at the website.

About the Participating Artists and Art

The artists donating to Faith in Action Caregivers – Southwest Austin are:

Jan Knox – “New Orleans”, original pen and ink, 11 x 14, matted
Orion Knox – “Sand Sculpture”, photograph, 16 x 20, framed
Marilyn Rea Nasky – “Abstract #9”, giclee print, 16 x 20, matted
Terry Starnes – “Blue Spring”, original oil on canvas, 12 x 12, gallery wrap
Valerie Walden – Wintertide”, original pastel, 16 x 20 image area, framed
Deborah Willhite – “Sun Rise”, original acrylic mixed media, 11 x 14, matted

About Austin Art Space Gallery & Studios

Austin Art Space opened in November 2008 as a cooperative space for established and emerging artists to create, collaborate and present their work. There are nine artists-in-residence at the studios. The gallery presents the work of these artists and hosts juried shows, as well as solo and group exhibitions by other artists. The gallery is available for rental for public and private exhibits and receptions. Austin Art Space is located in a free-standing shopping center behind Northcross Mall. The public gallery is open Friday and Saturday 11am – 6pm, or by appointment. Operating as a collective, the working studios are open Monday through Thursday whenever artists are on the premises. More information at www.austinartspace.com, austinartspacegallery@gmail.com, or 512.771.2868.

About Faith in Action Caregivers – Southwest Austin

Faith in Action Caregivers-Southwest Austin (formerly Southwest Austin Caregivers) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that provides services to older adults who reside in the Southwest Austin area. These free-of-charge services include personalized transportation (medical appointments, shopping, and errands), social contact (home visits and caring phone calls), errands (picking up and delivering groceries, prescriptions and other needed items), minor home and yard maintenance, and referral information about services for older adults. More information at www.swaustingaregivers.org.