THE OL’ SWITCHAROO: Belgian artist Luc Tuymans didn’t always plan to paint. Originally, he wanted to be a filmmaker before putting down the camera and picking up the brush in the 1980s. But that doesn’t mean he left the aesthetic of the screen behind. “The paintings are often constructed in a horizontal format, or with images cropped as if they have to fit a television or computer screen, replicating the delivery mode of most news-related images,” writes Gaile Robinson in her review of Tuymans’ retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art. If you missed Tuymans’ recent appearance on Think, you can listen to it here.

A GEM AT JUBILEE: Jubilee Theatre has broken off a tricky piece of American theater: August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. The play has some tough dialogue and asks the audience to suspend its disbelief. Overall, the local reviewers seem to like it pretty well and recommend seeing it. But it’s interesting to note that the staging seems to be a bit problematic. “The production sounds wonderful but looks odd,” Lawson Taitte writes. “The actors …  are often grouped stiffly onstage, as if they were in a spoken rather than sung oratorio.” Punch Shaw picked up on the same thing. “There are too many exchanges where you desperately want the actors to get out of their chairs and move.” Still, Shaw says that shouldn’t keep you from witnessing a production that, “bristles with fine performances.”

VISUAL ART NOTES: The museum heist in Paris last month has one blogger eagerly speculating at who the players are. (nytimes.com) … Technology is leading to the end of original art and the beginning of the era of the edit. (latimes.com) … The British Museum says if you can’t beat Wikipedia, join ’em. (nytimes.com)