• Dirk Snauwaert (Brussels)
• Maria Baibakova (Moscow)
• Kate Sutton (Moscow)

Organizer: BAIBAKOV art projects

"Luc Tuymans: Against the Day" was first shown in Wiels (Brussels, Belgium), from April 23 - August 8, 2009. Following its run in Moscow, the exhibition will travel to the Rooseum – Moderna Museet (Malmö, Sweden).

“Luc Tuymans: Against the Day” presents twenty new works by the Belgian artist, one of the most significant and influential contemporary painters working today. Insisting on the relevance of figurative painting in the context of the information age, Tuymans applies film-making techniques such as cropping,  framing, and sequencing to address the purported “anachronism” of painting or the “inadequacy” of the technique to capture the contemporary experience.

“Against the Day” will be the first major exhibition of the Belgian artist in Russia.  It completes a trilogy of exhibitions for Tuymans. The first investigated the anti-utopic power structures of the Jesuit Order; the second, “Forever: The Magic of Management,” took on the world of Walt Disney. Borrowing its title from a Thomas Pynchon novel, “Against the Day” explores aspects of virtual reality and its impact on one’s perception of reality. Tuymans locates his subject matter in sources as diverse as video games, reality television shows, and cell phone photography.

“Luc Tuymans: Against the Day”  is organized by curator Dirk Snauwaert and presented in conjunction with  BAIBAKOV art projects’ Maria Baibakova and Kate Sutton. The exhibition first opened in Wiels, Brussels, marking the artist’ first major show in his home country. Following its run in Moscow, the exhibition will continue to Rooseum-Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden. "Against the Day" is timed to coincide with Tuymans’ traveling US retrospective, which will open at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, and will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Dallas Museum of Art , Dallas, and Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco.

Luc Tuymans was born in Mortsel, Belgium in 1958. He studied fine art and painting at the Sint-Lukasinstituut in Brussels (1976-79) and then at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Visuels de la Cambre, also in Brussels (1979-80). He left Brussels for Antwerp, where he studied painting at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1980-82), before returning to Brussels to take a degree in History of Art at the Vrije Universiteit (1982-86). The first show of Tuymans's paintings was a solo exhibition at the Palais des Thermes in Ostend in 1985.

Since then he has exhibited widely in Europe, with solo shows at the Tate Modern (London), Porticus (Frankfurt am Main) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).  His work is included in the collections of prominent international museums, including the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, and the Centre Pompidou (Paris) and he has participated in such critical exhibitions as Documenta IX (1992), the 47th Venice Biennale (1997), and the Sao Paulo Biennial(2004).

Tuymans is represented by David Zwirner Gallery, New York, and Zeno X, Antwerp.

Press release

Embassy of Belgium in Moscow