22/10/12
Luc Tuymans: Allo!
David Zwirner
5 October – 17
November 2012
What better way to
inaugurate American gallerist David Zwirner’s new London space (his first
European location, and happily placed in a Georgian townhouse in the heart of
Mayfair) than by loudly hailing “Allo!”? Belgian painter Luc Tuymans (born
1958) is the one who has been appointed to carry out this task, with an
exhibition of his haunting scenes, inspired by the 1942 film, The Moon and Sixpence, itself an
adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1919 novel, loosely based on the life and
Tahitian travels of Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Albeit with none of the tropical
colour of Gauguin’s own works, these dark and deliberately unfocused scenes
nevertheless greet the visitor with flair.
