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Luc Tuymans<br />
Kristallnacht<br />
Studie zu Gaskammer (study for Gas Chamber)<br />
Sick children<br />
The three studies by Belgian painter Luc Tuymans on loan from Kunstmuseum Bern do not tell stories, they<br />
present historical facts.<br />
The unprepossessing watercolour study for the painting Gaskammer signalled the beginning of Tuymans’<br />
exploration of the representation of horror. A few almost tenderly applied brushstrokes contrast with black windows<br />
and drain grates. They irritate the viewer, drawing his eye in and forcing her to take a closer look.<br />
The artist has been called the painter of the unpaintable. His works rely on and address historical<br />
knowledge. Kristallnacht is an abstract gouache on corrugated cardboard with black brushstrokes on darkened,<br />
green ground. To understand its title, one needs have seen images of synagogues destroyed and flattened<br />
by the Nazis in the night from November 9 to November 10, 1938.<br />
Luc Tuymans invariably paints after photographs or video stills, drawing his visual inspiration from<br />
the history of the recent modern era. While he focuses on collective and individual crimes, he does not depict<br />
their horrifying facts. It is the titles and images evoked by the images that engender the horror.<br />
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