Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Untitled (Still Life)
Luc Tuymans Belgian
Not on view
This ostensibly banal depiction of a jug and fruit was inspiredby the tragic, extraordinary events of 9/11, which Tuymans witnessed. The work was first shown at an especially polemical iteration of the international exhibition documenta in 2002. There it defied expectations, rejecting the demand for social commentary and refusing to represent what Tuymans believed was unrepresentable. The work was inspired by an unfinished still life by Cézanne. However, the void surrounding the practically transparent motif assumes an unsettling presence; the traditional subject, in its overscale presence, gains an abstract quality.
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