where is painting now

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52 Winter 2013 Art Quarterly Across Europe and the US painting continues to occupy a central position in art, but in Britain painters have to fight to be heard at all. Art Quarterly asks why this is, and painters Luc Tuymans, Tomma Abts, Dana Schutz and Hurvin Anderson answer the same question: INTERVIEWS BY HOLLY BLACK, CHARLOTTE MULLINS AND SIMON GRANT WHERE IS PAINTING NOW?

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  • 52 Winter 2013 Art Quarterly

    Across Europe and the US painting continues to occupy a central position in art, but in Britain painters have to fight to be heard at all. Art Quarterly asks why this is, and painters Luc Tuymans, Tomma Abts, Dana Schutz and Hurvin Anderson answer the same question:

    IntervIews by Holly black, cHarlotte MullIns and sIMon Grant

    wHere Is paIntInGnow?

  • Art Quarterly Winter 2013 53

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  • 54 Winter 2013 Art Quarterly

    Previous page: Luc Tuymans, Technicolor, 2012; below: Catherine Story, Lovelock (I), 2010

    Right: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Midnight, Cadiz, 2013; bottom: Fiona Rae, Mixed Feelings and Time, 2012

    In Germany the octogenarian Gerhard Richter has long explored what it means to paint, variously producing photorealist canvases, colour charts and abstracts that explore what it is to commit an image to a surface. Germany continues to produce perceptive painters such as Neo Rauch, Albert Oehlen and Eberhard Havekost. In Belgium internationally acclaimed painter Luc Tuymans completes his works in a single day, his canvases questioning our relationship to reproductions and imagery past and present. Marlene Dumas, whose sombre portrait of the late Amy Winehouse hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, is arguably the Neth-erlands greatest living artist. In America, too, painters continue to be feted by public galleries: Chuck Close, Lisa Yuskavage, John Currin.

    In Britain, however, painters have had a less consistent time of it. There have certainly been great post-war painters who recently received major exhibitions of their work: Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Paula Rego, Peter Doig. But painters from the YBA genera-tion have often been overlooked, less visible than their formaldehyde and bed-making com-panions. Chris Ofili, Ian Davenport and Fiona Rae are three exceptions, but their work still seems to feature in fewer public exhibitions than that of Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas or Jake and Dinos Chapman. To paint in the 1980s, when these artists were at art school, was un-fashionable because painting had a long history, a tradition. And to continue painting while sharks were pickled and miniatures of Nazis re-enacted hell was to accept a life where their work may not have been publicly seen in the UK

    for years on end, despite international success. But a trio of curators at Tate Britain believe

    this is about to change. Andrew Wilson, Clarrie Wallis and Lizzie Carey-Thomas have put together a major new show, Painting Now, which features the work of five painters living and working in the UK: Tomma Abts, Gillian Carnegie, Simon Ling, Lucy McKenzie and Catherine Story. The curators felt that such a show was timely, and they are using the oppor-tunity to run a series of symposia and lectures to bring these and other UK artists back into the European and American discourse on painting. They cite David Joselits essay Painting Beside

    Itself (2009) as influential to their thinking the idea that painting belongs to a network that extends beyond the borders of a single work, and which encompasses everything from the time it has taken to paint it to its display. Joselit questions how painting can function in a digitally networked society, and how it address-es questions such as: How can the status of painting as matter be made explicit? The artists the curators have selected are not intended to offer a coherent narrative as to what painting can be today, but rather to offer propositions as to what it might be in this Instagram age.

    Tate Britains new show comes off the back of a series of exhibitions across the UK that have seen contemporary paintings line the walls of public galleries again. Birmingham-born Hurvin Andersons emphatic survey show at Ikon Gallery this autumn must surely see him nominated for the Turner Prize in 2014, while American Dana Schutzs latest paintings make their European debut this winter at The Hepworth Wakefield. A favourite for this years Turner Prize is a painter, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and galleries such as the Whitechapel are supporting painting by publishing a new series of books of artists writings, starting with Luc Tuymans. Over the following pages four artists offer their own thoughts on what it means to paint, to work in paint and to be a painter today. Charlotte Mullinsl Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists, Tate Britain, London, to 9 February. www.tate.org.uk, 5 National Art Pass (10 standard); Turner Prize, Ebrington, Derry-Londonderry, to 5 January. www.tate.org.uk, free to all sto

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  • Art Quarterly Winter 2013 55

    LUC TUYMANSBelgian artist Luc Tuymans is one of the most influential figurative painters in the world. He is represented by Xeno X in Antwerp and David Zwirner in London and New York

    Holly Black What originally drew you to paint?Luc Tuymans I think its some-thing you stumble upon. What everyone initially does is draw, but then all of a sudden and this was in kindergarten for me you get acquainted with another material, which is paint, and I was quite adamant about it. So adamant in fact that I was thrown out of the kindergarten because another kid in the class interfered and painted on top of my painted surface. So I was quite obsessive right from the start when it came to imagery! But the choice of why you would become an artist or a painter in particular is something that comes far later.So the intrinsic nature of wanting to use paint came from that early on? Its something that came very naturally in a sense and therefore it remains that. Its like riding a bike: it is something I know I can do. For me, painting is about timing and precision, its about a certain intensity and the medium allows me that type of intensity. So this is my appropriate medium.Painting has time built into its surface in the way it is created, in comparison to, say, taking a photograph. Yes, photographs can be reproduced, can be reprinted. A painting can also be forged, but it cannot be remade. Even if the maker himself decides to remake it exactly the same way and wants to

    reproduce the way he has painted in the first instance, it is never going to work.You spend just one day creating a piece of work, whether a long day or a shorter one. So you are consciously working with time is that an important element in your work?If you work as an artist you have to have a lot of discipline. This is a way to discipline yourself, which also came about naturally. It is not something that I thought up or set out to do. The urgency by which I have always painted and made an image is such that the attention span has its limits, and that doesnt go over a day.Can you tell me about historic painters you admire, and whether or not they have directly informed your work? There are many, many painters that were, and still are, important to me, like Jan van Eyck. One of the biggest shocks ever was seeing something in a book I didnt like, and then seeing it for real and realising I did, which was El Greco: his three paintings of saints in a museum in Budapest. In a very funny way it made sense, the deconstruction within the imagery. There was also the element of memory and the difficulty of memorising. There is the temperature of colour and there is this very specific element, which really made it clear to me what painting was about. It was the shock, the pure physical shock of

    being in front of the actual thing and not the reproduction. Which also made it clear that works of art that are very well reproduced are often not the greatest paintings. Do you think artists who paint today have an understanding of the long tradition of painting to which they are contributing? I think that we are now in a period where these elements of the past actually become much more important. So I do think that a lot of the painting that is being made now is generally informed by the painting of the past, in a different way of working with it and a different way of appropriating it. People like Velzquez, Manet, Goya, Morandi they still have this impact on the imagery. It also makes sense because inspiration doesnt fall out of thin air. One last question. There is an argument today that some people are not happy being termed a painter, as opposed to an artist. Do you feel there is a difference?First of all, I dont think theres any difference, and also because painting is the first conceptual image you think of, it goes all the way back to cave painting. So no, there is no other form of concep-tual image-building like painting. So its actually a compliment. l ON&BY Luc Tuymans is published by MIT Press on behalf of the Whitechapel Gallery, 15.95. It is the first in a series of anthologies of artists writings

    Right: Luc Tuymans, Allo! II, 2012

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  • 56 Winter 2013 Art Quarterly

    TOMMA ABTSTomma Abts was born in Germany and lives and works in London. She won the Turner Prize in 2006 and is represented by greengrassi in London. She is one of five artists in the exhibition Painting Now at Tate Britain. This is an extract from the Painting Now catalogue

    Simon Grant You studied Visual Communication and Experimental Film in Berlin. How did this feed into how you became a painter?Tomma Abts It was a very open environment to be in. I didnt study with a painting professor but worked in a studio outside of the Academy. I rented a studio with a few friends in a former Agricultural Production Comradeship farmhouse in East Berlin just after the Wall came down. How do you start one of your paintings?I begin with bright acrylic washes to quickly set up a starting point, and go from there with not much of a plan; its very spontaneous.

    After a while I select parts that I like and begin painting around them to keep them, by now using oil paint. Later on I define those shapes more clearly and add other elements, for example outlines, stripes or shadows, to create a multitude of possibilities. There still might not be a clear plan at this point, even if it starts to looks like there is. A long phase of trial and error commences. Towards finishing, it becomes a matter of editing, narrowing down the options again and trying to define things more clearly, though there is still a lot of going back and forth. How do you know when you have finished a painting?

    If you see a work in progress next to one that is finished, it is at least for me very obvious. Any painting I am still working on just doesnt have the same presence and intensity that a finished painting has; it doesnt have its own life yet, and even could look illustrative for instance, like a picture of something, rather than itself being the picture. By the end of the process it feels more like an object to me.Why are your canvases always the same size?At some point I decided on that size. It felt right. I think it relates to the size of a head space a portrait-type space. The vertical format holds the space tight. A landscape format would let the tension flow out on the sides.Do you have a problem with people talking about these as abstract works? Well, of course thats the term people use. But I dont consider them abstract, because Im working from a somewhat indistinct and hazy notion towards a very specific and concrete image. I am constructing an image from nothing and try to define it very clearly, so it becomes legible. At the same time I want it to be as open as possible.Finally, I am curious about which artists you are interested in.I see a lot of exhibitions, and just recently I saw a survey show of the Californian artist Llyn Foulkes at the Hammer Museum [in LA], and found that I was interested in how he had developed his very own peculiar technique and means of expression, and still manages to convey very strong political messages. Thinking of painters of my generation, I like Ellen Gronemeyer and Katharina Wulff. I feel my own practice is probably most closely related to that of Vincent Fecteau, although he is not a painter. But I get most excited by artists whose work seems very different to mine, with a much broader approach and bolder gesture, like, for example, Isa Genzken, Mike Kelley or Mark Leckey. On the other hand, artists who open up a whole new space from a narrow starting point also fascinate me: Robert Ryman, who can forever go on making works that revolve around the seemingly small gap between the object, its surface and how it is fixed to the wall; or On Kawara, whose work is based on such narrow parameters, but contains everything.

    Below: Tomma Abts, Jeels, 2012

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  • Art Quarterly Winter 2013 57

    DANA SCHUTZDana Schutz was born in Livonia near Detroit and lives and works in New York. She has shown across America and Europe, and is represented by the Petzel Gallery in New York

    Charlotte Mullins What drew you to the medium of paint?Dana Schutz I started painting when I was 14 or 15. My mother was an art teacher at junior high, she had paints around and I just really loved it. I loved the smell of it, it seemed very adult at that age. And I like how with painting there is a kind of freedom, I feel like you can really paint anything. When you painted your early series, Frank from Observation (2002), you positioned Frank as the last sitter, the last man on Earth, and you as the last painter. You seem to be very interested in what it is to paint, what it means to be a painter.It is a strange activity to spend your days doing. So sometimes I actually like it as a subject. In that instance I was interested in what the paintings would be in that situation: what would they be to Frank, and what would they be to me? Would they be just a way to pass time or would they be like a mirror for him to see himself? What are they? Are they even art at that point? I liked that it brought up questions of what it was to represent a subject, or even to put a subject in play. Frank could be different in every painting; who is to say how he actually looks?

    Your work is based on figurative scenarios but there is a lot of flatness, of abstraction within them.Yes. When I think of a subject, I think how do I begin to depict it. Some of it comes from drawing, but also trying to find the right shape, the right thing that could hold that space. The way that subjects meet in space is interesting to me.You use a wide range of techniques: the wrong end of the brush dragged through paint; passages slapped or smeared on; others finely worked. Do you enjoy using paint to deliver what is in your mind or is the paint dictating how you work?I think it is a mix of both. You know what you want it to be like and then it goes off the rails, it does its own thing! And then you have to scrape it all down. With these new paintings Ive been wiping away a lot. I want them to look like they happened very easily and fast, but it wasnt like that. If the gesture wasnt right I would wipe it off and start again. Sometimes it felt like building a house, you would do something and then it wasnt right and you would have to take down not only that gesture but all the decisions that came before, and then you would go and rebuild

    them again. It can be really frustrating. Until theres a moment and you think, oh, that works, that is in the right space.As a viewer one has a very physical response to your paintings. Subjects often perform awkward tasks: shaving hair; plucking out eyelashes; licking a brick. Do you purposefully solicit this reaction?I guess they do this for me; I never know if they do it for a viewer. But there is always a moment when you decide how you want to articulate something, a particular face in a painting. In Flasher (2012) theres a sense of the face being pushed back, the feeling that the head is almost coming up for air. I think, maybe because it is a physical sensation, you feel it more, there is an urgency in how you could begin to depict it. Before you begin a painting you jot down ideas for it. But when you begin, does the paint take over? Yes, the paint will do its own thing. It is a physical dance, you respond to it and if it is going well you forget that you are painting, it just feels like you are responding to it. l Dana Schutz, The Hepworth Wakefield, to 26 January. www.hepworthwakefield.org, free to all

    Right: Dana Schutz, Flasher, 2012

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  • 58 Winter 2013 Art Quarterly

    HURVIN ANDERSONHurvin Anderson was born in Birmingham and lives and works in London. He showed his Peters series at Tate Britain in 2009, and is represented by Thomas Dane in London and Michael Werner Gallery in New York

    Charlotte Mullins When you started your BA at Wimbledon School of Art in 1991 were you already focused on painting?Hurvin Anderson I pretty much only painted at Wimbledon. I was quite interested in working from life, but I was not interested in other media. I always painted as a child, but not that seriously. My brothers painted, and I guess you always do the things your brothers do. But then when I started to study I started to think about what this thing is, painting, what it is to do it all the time. Did you look at other artists at this time?I looked at a lot of British painters: Duncan Grant, Keith Vaughan, John Piper, Michael Andrews, David Hockney. When I came to Wimbledon there was a big [Richard] Diebenkorn show at the Whitechapel Gallery and that seemed to stick in my mind as a seminal thing. I clearly remember the Ocean Park series [196785].

    For me, looking at painting is about asking about your place in the world. Coming from my background a black working-class guy in the West Midlands it was about how I could relate to paintings. I was looking at British painters, but I was also looking at black artists like Keith Piper, Eddie Chambers, Sonia Boyce. Essentially that is where my work sits, between these two places. I am intrigued by how one affects the other. I am always conscious of this, everything I do has a bit of it in the background, but at the same time I am aware that I did want to make paintings about my own time and space, the environment that I knew and understood. You make only a few paintings each year and, although your new work appears freer, there is still a sense that every mark you make is carefully thought about and considered. Absolutely. Painting is a hard thing. Paintings can stop you start and you feel as if you know

    what you are going to do, there is some idea in your head. Then you try and make this thing and it has its own ideas about itself, and you have to get in tune with it. Or you have to work against your idea of how it should be. Painting is an intriguing thing; how you go about describing something. The security grilles in your earlier work, such as Some People (Welcome Series) (2004) function in a way to pin your eye to the surface, not allowing you entry into the subject beyond. And in your most recent works, such as B side (2013), a regular grid of squares appears and disappears across the canvas.That is a usual drawing device to square up the surface. I didnt make as many drawings around these new works as I normally do; everything I think about is therefore all in the painting. I consciously wanted to go back to drawing things out organically [on the canvas] and these squares are a residue of that process. In a lot of my work, B side especially, it does feel like a device, a way of pulling and pushing things backwards and forwards. I didnt consciously think about it in that way, but using a security grille or squaring up, both can act in the same manner [in the painting]. Which painting do you feel best represents your current practice?I think about this question a lot if Im honest. At the moment it is between B side and Loft (2013); it fluctuates between those two. I feel there is still more to do with B side. I also like siding (2013); theres an odd way that the squaring up sits in part of that painting that kind of intrigues me. There seem to be two distinct subjects you are repeatedly drawn to: the Caribbean landscape and environments from childhood, like Peters barbers shop in Birmingham.I feel schizophrenic at times, moving between these two areas. I come from a family of eight brothers and sisters, but was the only one to be born here [in the UK]. So there was this constant questioning of my Jamaican past, it was always something I was aware of, growing up in Birmingham. l Hurvin Anderson: New Works was at Thomas Dane, London, 15 October 16 November; Hurvin Anderson: reporting back, was at Ikon, Birmingham, 25 September 10 November. The book Hurvin Anderson: reporting back (Ikon, 20) features work from both exhibitions

    Below: Hurvin Anderson, siding, 2013; opposite: Hurvin Anderson, Peters Sitters 2, 2009

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  • Art Quarterly Winter 2013 59