Blacklight

Luc Tuymans has borrowed many visual principles in his work, such as the close-up and framing, from cinema. He has also made several films himself, and storyboard-like drawings such as Lift (1980) reveal his cinematographic eye. In Blacklight (1994), a chair, a sofa, a floor lamp, and a television set are tightly packed into the right corner of the image, as if we’re looking through a camera that has just swiveled away. The framing suggests a snapshot taken from a passing movement and heightens the uncanny atmosphere. The eye has to adjust to the dimness, because only upon second glance does a naked body on the sofa emerge. The strange, unnatural light seems to reveal the scene just as much as it conceals it.