Luc Tuymans Curates Sanguine Exhibition at M HKA, Juxtaposing Baroque Masters with Contemporary Works

Luc Tuymans curated the exhibition Sanguine / Bloedrood at M HKA in Antwerp, running through 16 September 2018. The show places contemporary art in dialogue with Baroque Old Master paintings, examining art's affective power through themes of suffering and spectacle. Key works include Edward Kienholz's installation Five Car Stud (1969-72), displayed in a black inflatable dome outside the museum, depicting a violent racist scene from civil-rights era America. Inside, Caravaggio's The Flagellation of Christ (1571-1610) and Zurbarán's The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (c.1650) explore similar tensions between ethics and aesthetics. Other featured artists include Pierre Huyghe, whose video Human Mask (2014) was filmed in Fukushima's evacuated zone following the 2011 disaster, and On Kawara, with early Thanatophanies drawings from the 1950s. Works by Lili Dujourie, Takashi Murakami, Tobias Rehberger, and Berlinde de Bruyckere further investigate pleasure, pain, and human fragility. The exhibition is part of the larger 'Antwerp Baroque. Rubens Inspires' festival promoting Flanders's Baroque cultural heritage. Tuymans frames the Baroque not merely as a historical style but as an enduring idea about art's capacity to overwhelm and provoke emotional empathy, questioning how contemporary art engages with violence, suffering, and sensory impact.