Wednesday Artist: Tal R

If you want an aesthetic discussion about when

a picture is fabulous, it's when something in the 

picture is an unpredictable movement.

~ Tal R

From December 2016 to May 2017, Danish painter Tal R* allowed the Louisiana Channel to interview him while he was at work on a series of nine railcar paintings he titled Habakuk (2017). Throughout the filmed conversation, embedded below, Tal R discusses his background and work, and how his paintings address the subject of time — past, present, and future. He also talks about his career as an artist, how "as an artist, you have to be as mystified as the observer." 

Born in 1967 in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tal R and his family migrated to Denmark when the artist was a child. He currently lives and works in Copenhagen. Credited with helping to "bring painting back" following conceptual art's dominance of the 1990s, he exhibits throughout the world.

In the United States, "Tal R: Keyhole", at New York City's Cheim & Read Gallery, ran from January 5 through February 11, 2017. Overseas, his exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, "Academy of Tal R", continues through September 10.

* Tal R's full name is Tal Shlomo Rosenzweig.

Tal R Profiles and Art at Contemporary Fine Arts (Berlin), Saatchi Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery (London)

Read Jennifer Samet's interview, "Beer with a Painter: Tal R" at Hyperallergic (February 4, 2017).