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"Luc Tuymans\u2019s paintings are, in a word, disorienting. Controversial subjects\u2014politicians and other cultural notables\u2014are hidden behind a veil of banal details and spare color, innocuous upon first glance. The artist\u2019s new solo show at Houston\u2019s Menil Collection, \u201CNice. Luc Tuymans,\u201D displays more than three decades of these works, many of which are modest in scale, as if to undermine the dark undercurrent running throughout.\n\nPinterestFacebookHeritage VI, Luc Tuymans, 1996.\n\n Image courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London\n\nThe Belgian artist often begins with found material\u2014film stills and photographs\u2014and then reimagines the images as portraits rendered in pallid hues. In one painting, racist activist and Klansman Joseph Milteer smiles out from the canvas; in a portrait of Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state scowls pensively; another painting portrays a brooding Christ figure. But rather than imbuing his works with an obvious social critique, Tuymans demonstrates a skepticism about representation in portraiture. The washed-out palette and blurred shapes turn these personages into ghostlike images, mere fragments of a memory, and viewers are left to sift through abstracted and imprecise brushstrokes to discover what is exposed and what is concealed.\n\nPinterestFacebookChrist, Luc Tuymans, 1998.\n\n Photo courtesy of the artist and Rubell Family Collection, Miami\n\nThrough January 5, 2014; Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; menil.org\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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