One way in which Luc Tuymans uses Mass Media

In The Heritage VI (1996), Luc Tuymans

In the Slade contemporary art lectures series 2015-16 Luc Tuymans talks about his source material for a series of paintings he shows in quick succession.  Many of the  paintings are rooted in international stories or past events. Access to media has allowed him to pull these stories from the world, big issues that are represented by photographs of people, the characters involved. It is obvious that one of the things that strikes him is the human aspect, the way seemingly ordinary people are subject to, or subject others to, horrible acts.

He references his portrait of Joseph Milteer, "It's a depiction of the average American dad, his eyes are a little bit enlarged, but it's actually a Texan Millionaire who was actually heading the Ku Klux Klansman."

He seems to be implying that on one level you can not spot someone's motives just by looking at their face which he frames but that once you find out who this person is it can become very unsettling, as if we should be able to see someones motives. His use of mass media has become a tool for him when he purposely holds back information that would ordinarily be packages with it. This is a tool that Gerhard Richter also used in his work in say the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group paintings.

Bibliography:

Slade contemporary art lectures series 2015-16 Talk - Luc Tuymans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G3iV_BxA7E