Left at the altar: Modern art to replace Tintoretto works at Venetian church

The Belgian artist’s works will hang in place of “The Last Supper” and “The People of Israel in the Desert” while the masterpieces undergo restoration​

The Belgian artist Luc Tuymans has created two major new works for the altar of a 16th-century church on a Venetian island. Tuymans's paintings, entitled Heat and Musicians (2025), go on show in the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore next month, across from St Mark’s Square.

Tuymans’s works replace a pair of canvases by the 16th-century artist Jacopo Tintoretto—The Last Supper and The People of Israel in the Desert—which will undergo restoration funded by the Save Venice conservation charity.

“My paintings—Heat, and Musicians (both 2025)—aren't installed in a museum; rather they are installed at the centre of a space of worship, where people regularly attend services,” Tuymans says. “This situation provides a completely different assessment of how an artwork is to be perceived, and responded to.

“How the paintings engage with the architecture of the space is also important. My work is wholly integrated into the Palladian basilica, not placed next to it, or around it, like previous installations before—Anish Kapoor, Berlinde Der Bruyckere.”

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