Luc Tuymans
Corporate
November 6 – December 21, 2010
Opening:
Saturday, November 6, 6-8pm
525 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011
+1 212 727 2070
Concurrent with Luc Tuymans’s upcoming solo exhibition, Corporate, David Zwirner is pleased to present the following events in New York City:
Artist Talk
Please join the artist for a talk followed by a reception & book signing
New York Studio School
Thursday, November 4, 6:30pm
8 West 8th Street
Free & open to the public; seating is limited
+1 212 673 6466
Book Launch
To celebrate the launch of his new publication Luc Tuymans: Is It Safe? (Phaidon Press 2010), please join the artist for a book signing & reception
PHAIDON | STORE
Friday, November 5, 6:30-8:30 PM
83 Wooster Street (btwn Spring & Broome)
RSVP Requested: store.soho [at] phaidon.com
+1 212 925 1900
About the exhibition
In this exhibition of paintings, Luc Tuymans examines the phenomenon of the corporation. Influenced, in part, by the work of American media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, which looks at the roots of modern-day corporate culture, the exhibition continues Tuymans’s interest in power structures and collective history. Rushkof observes how the purpose of corporatism from the onset was to suppress lateral interactions between people or small companies, instead redirecting any created revenue to a select group of investors. Yet most people, even corporate leaders, have little awareness of these underlying motivations or how automatically they are compelled by them. They identify with corporations and ultimately surrender their free agency in the process.
Taking their points of departure in the types of lighting found in corporate settings, Tuymans’s works consider how abstract, formal structures impact decision-making and ultimately shape everyday lives. A seminal painting from the series, Corporate recalls the fleet of England’s East India Company, one of the world’s first corporate entities from the early 17th century. Against a bleak sky, and kept in subtle shades of gray and purple, Tuymans portrays a large galleon floating on still water. Its many sails are swaying in the wind, but the overall impression is one of disconcerting quiet and calm. Historically overflowing with rarities from the Far East, it drifts here like a ghost ship on a silent, invasive mission.
Conspicuously handmade, Tuymans’s paintings seem to offer a welcome antidote towards their subject matter. Yet, at the same time, their smooth surfaces and blurred painterly touch could also be seen as referring to the way in which the media and advertisements in particular subtly manipulate consumer behavior and desire. It is within this ambiguity that Tuymans’s works operate: like abstractions of abstractions, they are history paintings of the mass media age.
Read the full press release here.
About the artist
Luc Tuymans is currently the subject of a major U.S. retrospective, co-organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. Also exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art, it is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (October 2, 2010 – January 9, 2011) and will next travel to Bozar: Centre for Fine Arts (Palais des Beaux- Arts) in Brussels (February 18 – May 8, 2011). Luc Tuymans is also the curator of A vision of Central Europe at the Brugge Centraal in Bruges, Belgium (October 22, 2010 – January 30, 2011). Previous major solo shows include those organized by the Tate Modern, London, 2004, and Moderna Museet, Malmö, 2009. Tuymans represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 2001, and his works are featured in the collections of prominent institutions worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Tate Gallery, London.
Media Contact
Ben Thornborough
bthornborough [at] davidzwirner.com
+1 212 727 2070