Comments on: Thinking about Luc Tuymans’ Congo Imagery

By: William Butler

William Butler — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:50:07 +0000

Does anyone have an image they can share of Tuymans’ painting of the house where Lumumba was killed? I need the image for a lecture and cannot find it on line. Thank you!

By: benjamin

benjamin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:44:38 +0000

Oh, please…Unfortunately, it seems that the discussion here is misguided in its relationship to Tuyman’s work. The work is not seeking to “teach” you anything about history, post-colonial theory, or the atrocities that we know were committed in the Congo. And, in contrast to the first comment about its “accuracy,” the work is not about mimesis either. Rather, as the blogger suggests,

“[Tuyman's work] didn’t seem to have a political stance or trajectory. There is a vacant space there and maybe that is its power. Is it asking the viewer to fill the space? The danger is that the viewer may not have enough of an entryway into the piece to understand the history that it only alludes to.

Yes. Tuymans wants the experience to rest in how the constellation of images comes together and how they reference their photographic sources. It is enough to say that these images are all too common, all to plain and that is why Tuymans selects them and paints them the way he does, without any drama or political position, but rather as a way of talking about what painting can and cannot do. I would suggest that rather than criticize them for what YOU want them to do, read a little about him and what he wants them to do. Art and painting need and deserve that kind of investment, as art is invariably as complex as the world; to make a political statement is easy, to make art that reflects the complexity of the role of the viewer and subject in a political world is much more challenging, and I would argue, vital.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:09:27 +0000

It looks like the web ate my last post. If you click on my name, it should take you back to my blog where you can find the post and discussion on Tuymans. I wasn’t aware of the artists that you mentioned and I’m now going to have to check them out. But I agree that Tuymans’ cool distance from the atrocities that he paints doesn’t do very much to illuminate, much less educate people about them.

By: Duane Deterville

Duane Deterville — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:52:35 +0000

I would love to hear more about what you wrote on your blog nancy. I’ve read the recent interview with Tuymans in the February issue of Art in America and his explanations of the “Mwana Kitoko…” series of paintings is very basic. Even when explaining them he makes no mention of the genocide that even Mark Twain (King Leopold’s Soliloquy) wrote about in detail. Twain wrote about the Belgian’s committing genocide in the Congo in 1905. Artists both in the Congo and beyond have created powerful work that speaks to the unspeakable history of European colonialism in the Congo. Some artists have a tendency to distance themselves from the political implications of the content in their work. They don’t want to be “didactic.” Tuymans recently said “Art is not something you have to imply is political. Art is not political, life is political.” (The Art Newspaper, Sept. 2009) I think that both art and life are political and artists such as Cheri Samba from Congo or Leon Golub are examples of painters who prove that we can address an unspeakable history in works of art. Tuymans just seems to distance himself from that history with his Congo series. He reduces that history to furniture. The way that he does it leaves the viewer with a similar ahistoric, apolitical understanding. Viewers can walk into the “Mwana Kitoko…” portion of the retrospective and never understand the connection between the cell phone in their pocket and an ongoing centuries old Holocaust.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:19:57 +0000

I agree with a lot that Mr. Lostaunau wrote above. I felt that Tuyman’s was more interested in promoting his career as the current cool European painter than educating us about the tragic and violent history of the Congo. I wrote quite a bit about him in my blog and posted a discussion that a group of us had around his work and what it actually says. I find the work interesting, sometimes even intriguing, but over -hyped and felt that the tragedy of the Congo was not even remotely evoked in his cool, white paintings.

By: Frank Lostaunau

Frank Lostaunau — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:31:00 +0000

This painting about Lumumba says nothing about Congo or colonial history. Not a very interesting painting, rather sketchy, Lumumba had darker skin, seems like he doesn’t know much about anatomy, kind of boring…I like other paintings by this artist…I have the impression that Tuyman has absolutely no interest in the subject and probably knows little if nothing about colonialism…seems like he’s trying to whitewash Congo.