Volume 20 No. 4
December 2013/January 2014 ISSUE • 11
‘Nice’ is not nice LUC TUYMANS’ EXHIBIT AT MENIL COLLECTION QUESTIONS REALITY Review by Sarah Hamilton
THE OPENING LINE OF THIS review should contain some type of disclaimer such as, “What you are about to see is not for the faint of heart, nor the faint of mind, or for anyone who has recently been plagued with severe depression and anxiety.” The exhibition is called “Nice,” but that’s exactly the conundrum —
it’s not. Even the philanthropic goodwill of the Menil Collection founders is questioned. Don’t get me wrong, I commend and recommend this show for exactly that reason. If you are in search of a show that gets a little gritty under the surface and reveals immediately a visual language echoing profound darkness and pessimism, you have come to the right museum and embarked on a stimulating journey. Besides, winter is nearing its official start soon, so what more appropriate time than now to bask in the bleak, gray toned world of this complex artist? “Nice,” currently on view at the Menil Collection in Houston through Jan. 5, is a show of 30 oil on canvas portrait paintings by the contemporary Belgian artist Luc Tuymans, born in 1958. If you Google the artist, you will find that he is classified as one of the world’s most important painters of modern life and memory, who reinvigorated figurative painting from its stale perception in the history of art. Tuymans is a painter who depicts moments of atrocities in our history, from events associated with WWII, the Holocaust, and Belgium’s days of colonization in the Congo, among others. The exhibition was curated by the Menil’s Director, Josef Helfenstein, curator of modern/contemporary art, Toby Kamps, and Tuymans who is usually highly instrumental in selecting his own works, titling shows, and installing the artwork. All of the paintings on exhibit date from 1990 to 2012. Accompanying the works by Tuymans are 25 portraits, masks, carved heads, funerary images, devotional figures and abstract paintings from the Menil’s permanent collection. The permanent holdings on view range in date from the early encaustic mummy portraits of the Faiyum region of Egypt in 30 B.C.E. to Ad Reinhardt’s black cross painting from the late 1960s. They are placed in specific dialogue with the contemporary work in an effort to accentuate the messages/meanings inherent in Tuymans’ paintings. The 30 portrait paintings selected for this show are not just the typical traditional portraits of your grandmother or grandfather, but rather contain representations of some of history’s most esteemed and, at times, controversial leaders such as Condoleezza Rice in “Secretary of State” and Nazi architect, Albert Speer in the painting “Secrets.” I would like to comment on some of the nuances that lingered in the exhibition as I wandered from gallery to gallery. This is what makes a review interesting anyway, and there is a beautiful catalogue, titled “Portraits for Purchase,” that contains an essay by Kamps and Robert Storr, as well as a free gallery
Luc Tuymans SECRETS brochure to assist visitors who desire more understanding of the facts. I read the essays and materials prior to visiting the exhibition, which in my opinion is a must, since many of the historical figures represented by Tuymans were unfamiliar to me. Or you can see the show and be completely confused throughout and read later. What are we really seeing when we come to
“Nice?” The answer is twofold. First, we see the environment, the exterior view the Menil curatorial staff fabricated to enhance the paintings’ messages and overall amnesiac feel. The quiet, soft mood of the natural lighting gives a feeling of being enveloped in a mausoleum. It is a somber, contemplative space much
See TUYMENS on page 12