It’s a May morning. Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore: a white snake-island sleeping motionless in front of San Marco, floating as if it had never known the weight of the world. The sky is typical: a form of indecision between gray and silver. And right there, in the Basilica that Palladio built with mathematical patience and an eye to providence, something rather curious has happened. Jacopo Tintoretto has gone on vacation. Or rather, his two monumental canvases – The Last Supper and The People of Israel in the Desert – have gone for restoration after half a century of service. They needed it. But in their place, mind you, no ordinary replacement has arrived. Luc Tuymans has arrived.

Luc Tuymans, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, installation view, ph Marco Furio Magliani

Tuymans, who doesn’t smile easily. Who paints as if he were remembering a half-dream, a dream he perhaps doesn’t even want to tell. Who said: «I bring you two paintings. But don’t expect answers». The two works are called Heat and Musicians. They are large, almost immeasurable: 380 by 600 centimeters, like two sails stretched against the presbytery wall. But what they depict… well, that’s not clear. And that’s the point. Tuymans doesn’t love endings. His images seem suspended between apparition and fading. Pastel colors, outlines that undo themselves, like old family photographs left under the sun. In Heat, perhaps, there is a room. Perhaps not. In Musicians, perhaps there really are musicians. But the spectator remains there, planted before the mystery, like someone who enters a church with the idea of lighting a candle and ends up questioning the existence of God.

The works of Luc Tuymans at Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, “Musicians”, 2025 © Marco Sabadin/Vision

What makes it all more vertiginous is that this is not a gallery. It’s a living basilica, where Benedictine monks pray six times a day. It’s they, together with the Draiflessen Collection and the Benedicti Claustra Onlus, who want Tuymans here. Because they believe that contemporary art can, indeed must, enter sacred places. Not to “decorate”, as was done in the Baroque period. But to disturb, to question, to reopen ancient wounds. Because if God is everywhere, He can also be in painting that says nothing. Tuymans, for his part, has accepted the challenge like a Zen monk. He said that his task was not to reinterpret Tintoretto. It was not to remake, update, comment. It was rather to enter the void left by absence, and make something of it. «Art – he seems to have said one day, – is the attempt to make visible what is not there».

Luc Tuymans, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, installation view, ph Joan Porcel Studio – Matteo Barolo

And then there’s the illuminated manuscript. Yes, a contemporary illuminated manuscript. Painted by Tuymans, it will be displayed on the lectern at the center of the Main Choir. It will be a book that doesn’t tell stories, but lets silence speak. It will be an act of praise, as the Benedictines understand it: a visual song to presence in absence. Now, imagine the tourist. Jumps off the vaporetto (Line 2, San Giorgio stop), slips into the Basilica, perhaps seeking a bit of shade. Finds himself before two canvases that seem to evaporate, like dreams upon waking. And perhaps remains there, for a long time, without knowing exactly why. This is the small miracle. In a world where everything shouts, Luc Tuymans whispers. And those who listen, perhaps, begin to see.

Info:

9/05/2025 – 23/11/2025
Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore
Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore 2, Venezia

Francesco Liggieri

Independent artist and curator. Founder of No Title Gallery in 2011. I observe, study, ask questions, take informations and live in contemporary art, a real stimulus for my research.