, a new expansion of the TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world. The list highlights 100 rising stars who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, health, science and activism, and more.

Akunyili Crosby's work is on view in the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia through November 24, 2019. Created specifically for the Biennale exhibition and on view in the Arsenale in Venice, the artist's new series revisits her earlier interest in portraiture, exploring the legibility of the body as a surface, in which aspects such as hair, skin, clothing, and jewelry resonate culturally and historically.

Interiorities. Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Leonor Antunes, Henrike Naumann, Adriana Varejão

 at Haus der Kunst in Munich asks “What happens inside us?” in a time characterized by an increasing externalization of the interior, for example through social media. Taking the historical subject of interior painting as a point of departure, the show examines transnational and multiple identities that are at the same time fragmented and complex, as demonstrated in the work of these three artists.

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 will be published by David Zwirner Books this month. That marks the completion of a huge project ten years in the making, helmed by the curator and writer 

 volume, published in 2017, features 186 paintings dating from 1972–1994;

, published earlier this year, covers 198 works from 1995–2006, and the third 180 works from 2007–2018. All told, the three volumes take in all the paintings created by Tuymans from 1972 until 2018 chronologically. The following text is excerpted from Meyer-Hermann’s remarks during a talk about the Catalogue Raisonné at the 

Eva Meyer-Hermann and Luc Tuymans in conversation about the Catalogue Raisonn√© at Palazzo Grassi, October 2019.

This publication contains almost five million connections: it connects 564 paintings by Luc Tuymans with their own histories over the past five decades. It would have taken one person four years of continuous work to compile this if a link was created every ten minutes. Four years. Day and night. Without eating, sleeping, or anything else. We began ten years ago with the concept for the book and the research: my office in Berlin; Luc Tuymans and his studio in Antwerp; his galleries in Antwerp, Tokyo, and New York; and David Zwirner Books.

? It’s a good example of an old technique to secure facts in a scholarly way. You may call it old-fashioned, but for me it’s a weapon against a society full of fake news. We wanted to create a tool (like a telephone book) to retrieve information which is timeless, which documents precisely and meticulously the history and the reception of each work. This helps to maintain the paintings’ integrity and authenticity for the future.

 for contemporary artists, I feel there is no single way to make a publication like this. The most important person in the entire game is the artist: every edition should have an individual structure appropriate to their work. Luc and I developed a very special feature for his catalogue raisonné: we decided to include a fully annotated and illustrated chronology at the end of each volume.

These three volumes are an account of forty-seven years of work by one of the most influential painters of our time. When they encounter such a summation, artists are overwhelmed, yes. Sometimes they don’t want to face the past. But mostly they enjoy being confronted with the “big picture“ of their oeuvre, and begin to draw new energy from it.

A photo of Eva Meyer-Hermann by Tom Wagner.

Eva, you have known Luc Tuymans for a long time. How did you first meet?

We first met in spring 1993 at Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, or, to be more precise, I met his paintings first. I had just begun my first job as assistant curator and had to take care of the loan procedures for Luc’s paintings for his exhibition. I found myself surrounded in the exhibition space by very few and very small paintings, and I could not believe that those were to make up an entire exhibition. The artist arrived and, together with the curator of the show, Julian Heynen, we installed the works. It was a miracle for me at that time: I saw Luc wandering through the various spaces, and with very quick and intuitive decisions, he directed the paintings onto the walls. And there it was, a very concentrated and all-encompassing broad exhibition. No feeling of lack of anything. Intimate formats, but with a strong and uncompromising aura that I never forgot.

What is something crucial that you understand about his work now that you couldn’t have known then?

Of course, once you know more and once you’ve followed the development of the oeuvre for over twenty-six years, you are much more deeply involved and more knowledgeable. A big issue for both of us was the construction of the chronology, which parallels the catalogue raisonné. It makes the contexts in which whole groups of paintings came into existence very clear. I learnt my lesson in 1993 about Luc being a masterful curator by genuinely juxtaposing his canvases (or artworks by others) within a given architecture. Moreover, I know by now much more about his understanding of politics and society—and last but not least, about art and the power of art in connection to this environment.

You have mentioned that the books are structured in a way that fits Tuymans’s work—can you elaborate on this?

How the books are structured pays tribute to the enormous role the artist plays in the history of painting. Giving a full account of all the solo exhibitions, selected group exhibitions, and relevant literature where the works “publicly appeared” focuses on the importance of the reception of the works. It is not about judging the way the work was received, but about providing an opportunity for researchers in the future to go back through several years and multiple interpretations to draw their own conclusions. It makes clear that the existence of art is always to be contextualised with the time when it came about. The chronology (see above) adds to that, and helps the orientation.

Furthermore, great emphasis was placed on the reproduction quality of the paintings in the images. In the future, the printed image will be a reference for all further reproductions of works in books.

You worked closely with your assistant editor, Johannes Schmidt. Did you each have particular points of focus or specialism?

Johannes Schmidt has worked in my office for thirteen years. My education is in art history, and he studied media history, which is a very good addition. Moreover, his is almost one generation younger than me, so his computer and database knowledge is most “naturally” better than mine. Furthermore, we share the values of meticulousness, precision, and a passion for working with artists. He is also one of the few people in the world who can cope with my love for detail and my strict work ethic ;) It is a win-win situation—for me, and for the artists we work with.

You have included 1,477 known provenances—can you recall any memorable examples?

Of course, there are many memorable examples. You must imagine some aspects of the project as a kind of detective work. Sometimes it was an adventure to find out where a painting is physically situated. And you get involved in long stories, family dramas, and stories not unlike crime novels. But don’t ask me to be more specific, because one of the features of a serious researcher of a catalogue raisonné is discretion!

Of course, this was a very serious endeavour, lasting ten years. Can you recount any anecdotes from the process of compiling the books?

The most beautiful moment I recall is the meeting we had with Luc regarding the set-up of the chronological order of the works. As a researcher/scholar, you would think you’d just present the artist with a list of all the works and that he would react to your abstract construct by correcting the sequence or confirming it. Knowing Luc (see my aforementioned experience in Krefeld), I figured that he would not respond to such a list. So we prepared an analog and illustrated index card for each work and brought those to his studio in Antwerp, where we presented them on a large table, year by year. It was wonderful to see Luc remembering all the paintings, shuffling the cards around, saying which painting led to another, and recalling the circumstances. It was like witnessing a reenactment—or at least a very vivid recollection—of his own (already historic) oeuvre, which was, all of a sudden, so much in sight for him again.

What did it mean for your own practice as a curator to work on this, and how do you see your identity and your own career reflected through the lens of a project like this?

From the very beginning of my career, I was driven by the wish to document and mediate what artists do today. I have fulfilled very different roles in the art world: I worked in public and private institutions, I have set up the structures for private collections to go public, but through all these twenty-seven years, I was always on the side of the artists. Whatever I do, be it a catalogue raisonné, a substantial monograph, or a retrospective exhibition, the artist and their work come first. The format of each endeavor is always set out in a way that it is appropriate to the artist’s oeuvre. I think we owe so much to artists—they are the thinkers, philosophers, and speakers of our time. They have to stay independent and uncompromising as they are in order to be a formative part of our culture. Being able to work with Luc Tuymans so closely for over then years in order to create this magnum opus is a privilege and a big compliment. It is wonderful to feel the trust of the artist. As an art historian, you feel your work—and also, in a way, your uncompromising attitude—are appreciated. There is more to do and to say about art than auction figures or visitor numbers.

If you could save just one volume from a fire, which would it be, and why?

Imagine being asked which of your three children you would rescue? I think you’d rather jump into the fire yourself! But seriously: The three volumes are equal in value and reflect very specifically the production and being of the paintings in their own time. And they’re so thick and solid, they wouldn’t burn anyway… ;)

Luc Tuymans Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings

A photo of Luc Tuymans Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, volumes 1, 2, and 3.

On Luc Tuymans: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings

Interview with the Editor: Eva Meyer-Hermann

A drawing by Bill Traylor, titled Blue Rabbit Running, dated 1939-1942.

Explore the Exhibition

The New York Times, feature by Robin Pogrebin

“He likened Traylor to the greats—the Giacomettis, the Kandinskys.”

The following excerpts are taken from an interview with Jason Rhoades conducted by journalist Javier Díaz-Guardiola, during a press conference at the opening of 

at CAC Málaga, in 2006. Music by Shakira played in the background while the artist walked members of the press through the installation.

 is on view at 519 West 19th Street, New York, through December 7, 2019.

You say that your work must not be understood as isolated pieces, but rather as the result of a process. What are we talking about exactly?

It is about life. I am interested in each and all of the connections that happen in life. I want to see everything as a continuum, but not like those artistic works that sometimes look like a salami that the artists are slicing up and taking to the market. l am fighting to make interconnections possible, and because things inspire me to create a work. My insecurity is probably part of the process. Maybe that’s why I do not want to forget things and I do not want things to forget about me. You might think that, as an artist, you are always present in your work, but we must fight to maintain the connection between the work, oneself, the first observer and the last. And the fact that the whole thing is part of a movement.

What does this accumulation of objects—whether they are found, built, bought or collected—actually represent?

Basically, this is my way of understanding culture and continuing it. lt all comes from my being a real workaholic and life giving me the opportunity to develop without problems. I also think that things have not gone bad for me at all and that I have been able to take advantage of the opportunities that were offered to me. I am a handyman, and think that I [could] survive a war or a crisis without difficulty. l don’t know how long that will last, because I am a person who likes to take a lot of risks. I do not like objects for objects’ sake. It always amazed me that a tourist would be able to get what he buys as a souvenir on a trip. That led me to reproduce his behavior in order to try and understand it. Behind the purchase of this or that object surely there always is a reason—lots of stories and lies—but the important thing is that this accumulated mess expresses a value we associate with culture and [that] it is necessary to defend a concept of culture that goes much further than soccer, Google, or french fries. I am not a person who likes art too much, but merely someone who is consumed by his work, by himself—a narcissist, no doubt about it—with a big superego.

In this installation there is a mixture of sex, fetishism, religion, and consumerism. What do all those concepts mean to you?

I am very fond of mysteries, and I try to unravel them, just like trying to grasp the big stories. They are, in turn, full of little stories and characters who star in them, and in the end they are all intertwined with each other. lt would be a very complex exercise for me to try to express anecdotes, because it also is more difficult to transfer those from one culture to another. It is the big stories we continue to write and rediscover and that we focus on, since those are the ones that help us communicate—that share a universal language. Perhaps I am focusing on my work in personal matters, but everything ends up being related to the big stories, and this is something that enables a culture’s strength, and allows it to have a dialogue with other cultures. China, for instance, fascinates me. It is the current challenge the US has to confront, and we must start to establish ways to come together and meet with that country as soon as possible.

You say they don’t take you seriously. However, in the presentation of this piece, you mentioned that the entire history of art can be condensed into one rap song. That is a very serious thought.

That thought is almost a life philosophy. I would love to be much more pop, and that pop would in turn be taken much more seriously. Maybe that is why I consider myself a mediator between Plato and Shakira—the Colombian singer—a kind of processor of popular culture. l don’t need to fear what is behind me, although I know it will end up devouring me. That is what happened to me in Tijuana, where I experienced violent situations that instilled fear in me. But I forced myself to undergo that fear

Your interest in Islam and the meeting of cultures led you to call this installation 

There are a lot of things that put all those concepts together. Los Angeles, Tijuana, Tangier, and Málaga are border towns. The distance between Los Angeles and Tangier, and between Tijuana and Málaga, must be similar—there is an intellectual link—plus it was Spanish culture that gave rise to Tijuana and, up to a certain point, you could talk about the cultural impact of the US on Tangier.... Surely you can talk of cultural cross-fertilization between those four places, which to me is all the poetry I need to work with.

Installation view of the exhibition, Jason Rhoades: Tijuanatanjierchandelier, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2019.

“I want to be the mediator between Plato and Shakira”

"The actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus remembers her father, William Louis-Dreyfus, swearing on the phone in the 1990s as he almost got outbid on a painting by Bill Traylor, the Alabama artist born into slavery who took up drawing around age 85.

'He amassed quite a number of them,' she said of the works, which the artist made with scraps of cardboard as his canvas, using poster paint, charcoal and pencil. 'He really likened Traylor to the greats—the Giacomettis, the Kandinskys.'

Forty of those Traylors will go on view at the David Zwirner Gallery’s Upper East Side space on Tuesday in an exhibition whose proceeds will mostly go toward the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit organization that seeks to break the cycle of poverty for youngsters in Central Harlem through education.

The show includes prime examples of Traylor’s signature style—elegantly spare, alternately buoyant and elegiac. Despite their stick-figure minimalism, the characters in his paintings and drawings have personality; his rabbits, birds and dogs seem to move through space.

'They’re almost modern in composition,' Ms. Louis-Dreyfus said, “and they have a joyfulness that reminds me of my father at his best.'"

 is on view through February 8, 2020 at 34 East 69th Street, New York.

Image: Alabama artist Bill Traylor working under a shade tree in a Montgomery neighborhood, 1946. Photo courtesy of the Alabama State Council on the Arts

An archival photo of Bill Traylor working under a shade tree in a Montgomery neighborhood

he likened traylor to the greats the giacomettis the kandinskys

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.