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"I have a high distrust for images, even my own."
—Luc TuymansMagnified beyond recognition and divorced from any context outside of itself, Lantern is a particularly captivating work by acclaimed Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. Flattened into abstraction, the composition is difficult to read at first, its elegantly scalloped lines and compressed palette eventually resolving into the interlocking panes of glass and leading of the antiquated lantern of its title. Highly cinematic, Tuymans’ closely-cropped format prompts reflections upon the nature of the image and interpretation – and how easily the two can be alienated from one another.Remaining committed to the representational in an era when his contemporaries were veering increasingly towards abstraction, Tuymans first gained critical recognition in the early 1990s with his strange and highly evocative images that explored history and its representation, the machinations of power, technology and the image, and the strangeness of quotidian objects. Executed in 1993, Lantern belongs to this critical period of the artist’s career, the year after his widely-acclaimed Documenta exhibition and just one year after he began to show with David Zwirner. Included in Tuyman’s three-part 2008 retrospective where the work travelled between Budapest, Warsaw, and Munich, Lantern highlights the artist’s deep respect for painterly tradition mediated through an image-saturated contemporary lens.
Walter Sickert, Minnie Cunningham at the Old Bedford, 1892, Tate, London. Image: © Tate Drawing on associations with darkened alleyways and seedier haunts, the deeply luminous red light casts a sinister glow that calls to mind the crepuscular light and hazy visions of Walter Sickert. Vibrating against the softer tones surrounding it, the vertical shock of red here seems especially to evoke Sickert’s haunting Minnie Cunningham at the Old Bedford, which retrospectively seems to fulfil Tuyman’s description of his own work wherein ‘even blurriness is painted, so it’s very sharp.’i Sickert too was fascinated by the form and functioning of the image, and of its propensity towards ambiguity, something self-consciously cultivated in what Tuymans has dubbed his ‘authentic falsifications’.
Hypertrophy and the Image
Working primarily from found images and filmed footage, Tuymans’ adopted the vernacular of photographs and film stills, finding deliberate visual strategies such as close-ups and extreme cropping to distort meaning and legibility, pushing the image into incomprehension. In this, his work looks back towards the Surrealism of fellow Belgian painter René Magritte, whose compositions carry viewers beyond the rational world, liberating art from more its more conventional role in relation to meaning. In the 1950s, Magritte began to develop his Hypertrophy series, where everyday objects such as apples, rocks, and roses, were enlarged to exaggerated proportions, filling out the small rooms they often occupy . This perplexing tension generates an unsettling effect that seems to speak to the sense of alienation and unease that pervaded post-war Europe, echoed in Lantern’s own, disorientating magnification and its manipulation of the image.
René Magritte, L'anniversaire, 1959, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Image: Photothèque R. Magritte /Adagp Images, Paris / Scala, Florence, Artwork: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2022 Collector’s Digest
• One of the most influential painters working today, Luc Tuymans at once defies painterly convention, and embraces painting as the most traditional of all artistic mediums.
• Examples of Tuymans work can be found in major international institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among others.
• Alongside his painting practice, Tuymans is also an accomplished and active curator, especially showcased in the 2015 exhibition that he organised with London’s Parasol Unit, bringing together six painters of different ages and nationalities.
• A striking example of one of Tyuman’s magnified images of quotidian objects, Lantern was included in the three-part 2008 Luc Tuymans: Retrospective where it travelled between Budapest, Warsaw, and Munich.
Meet the Artist: Luc Tuymans, The Guardian, 2012
Provenance
Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Budapest, Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Luc Tuymans: Retrospective, 15 December 2007 – 10 February 2008
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Luc Tuymans: Wenn der Frühling Kommt, 2 March – 12 May 2008, p. 85 (titled Lamp; installation view illustrated, p. 63)
Warsaw, Zacheta – National Gallery of Art, Luc Tuymans: Come and See, 30 May – 17 August 2008Literature
Frank Demaegd, ed., Luc Tuymans, Zeno X Gallery: 25 Years of Collaboration, Antwerp, 2016, p. 262 (illustrated)
Eva Meyer-Hermann, ed., Luc Tuymans: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings Volume 1: 1972-1994, New York, 2017, no. LTP 162, pp. 366, 488 (illustrated, p. 367)
34
Lantern
signed and dated ‘Luc Tuymans 93’ on the reverse
oil on canvas
49.7 x 49.5 cm (19 5/8 x 19 1/2 in.)
Painted in 1993.
Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £226,800
Rosanna Widén
Senior Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
+44 20 7318 4060
rwiden@phillips.com
Olivia Thornton
Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe
+44 20 7318 4099
othornton@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
London Auction 14 October 2022
1
Julian Pace
Kanye
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡♠
Sold for £113,400
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2
Michaela Yearwood-Dan
Coping Mechanisms
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠
Sold for £239,400
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3
Rebecca Ness
Pencil Flipper
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £119,700
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4
Robert Nava
Before Minotaur
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £639,600
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5
Emily Mae Smith
Raft on Siren Sea
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡
Sold for £226,800
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6
Caroline Walker
Night Scenes
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡♠
Sold for £516,600
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7
Issy Wood
The butter
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £277,200
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8
Anna Weyant
Cynthia
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £302,400
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9
Elizabeth Peyton
Evan at the Reading Festival 1993
Estimate £480,000 - 650,000 ‡
Sold for £567,000
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10
Doron Langberg
Nir and Zach
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £378,000
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11
This lot is no longer available.
12
Reggie Burrows Hodges
First Serve
Estimate £220,000 - 280,000 ‡
Sold for £591,200
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13
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14
Alberto Burri
Sacco e Rosso
Estimate £3,000,000 - 4,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £3,047,500
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15
Salvatore Scarpitta
Red Freight
Estimate £900,000 - 1,200,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,111,500
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16
Yayoi Kusama
Pumpkin
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡
Sold for £1,135,700
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17
Mark Bradford
Nodding Gunpowder
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000
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18
Yayoi Kusama
INFINITY-NETS (UAFE)
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ‡
Sold for £990,500
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19
Mickalene Thomas
As If You Read My Mind
Estimate £200,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £504,000
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20
Tschabalala Self
Daydream
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £176,400
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21
Banksy
Sorry The Lifestyle You Ordered Is Currently Out Of Stock
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ♠
Sold for £1,837,500
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22
Ayako Rokkaku
Untitled
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
Sold for £296,100
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23
This lot is no longer available.
24
Rafa Macarrón
Un Día en la Playa
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡♠
Sold for £138,600
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25
Banksy
Laugh Now But One Day We'll Be In Charge
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ♠
Sold for £1,172,000
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26
Damien Hirst
Biotin Hydrazide
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £700,100
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27
Austyn Weiner
Working Through Not Knowing A Damn Thing About Any Thing
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡
Sold for £226,800
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28
Andy Warhol
Dollar Sign
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £603,300
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29
Marc Chagall
Deux profils verts au cirque
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡♠
Sold for £340,200
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30
Damien Hirst
Omnipotence
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ♠
Sold for £796,900
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31
Harold Ancart
Untitled
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £239,400
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32
This lot is no longer available.
33
Georg Baselitz
Dr. Dumouchel (Remix)
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £615,400
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34
Luc Tuymans
Lantern
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £226,800
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35
John Baldessari
Female and Male Faces (With Notations) with Black and White Commentary
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
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36
Takashi Murakami
Sage
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £478,800
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37
Cory Arcangel
Photoshop CS: 60 by 60 inches, RGB, square pixels, default gradient "Grey Value Shapes", mousedown y=17960 x=620, mouseup y=20 x=0; photoshop tool "Wand", click= y=500 x=1940, tolerance=50; default gradient "Grey Value Shapes", mousedown y=120 x=5040
Estimate £70,000 - 100,000 ‡
Sold for £226,800
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