Luc Tuymans' work can be romantic and repetitious; his enthrallment with hot-button subjects can make him seem opportunistic; some of his latest paintings lack ambiguity. Even so, Tuymans deserves tremendous credit for a farsighted decision he made 25 years ago that not only changed his art but altered the way painting looks and is talked about today. By now the wan, blurry brushiness of Tuymans' work is so paradigmatic and influential that it's possible to speak of the Tuymans-esque as one would the Kafkaesque.

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