Luc Tuymans (b. 1958) is a Belgian artist who is internationally known for his paintings that engage equally with questions of history and its representation as with quotidian subject matter, frequently cast in unfamiliar and eerie light. Painted from preexisting imagery, his works often appear slightly out of focus and sparsely colored, like third-degree abstractions from reality. Whereas earlier works were based on magazine pictures, drawings, television footage, and Polaroids, recent source images include material accessed online and the artist's own iPhone photos, printed out and sometimes re-photographed several times. Since the 1980s, Tuymans has steadily exhibited in the United States, Europe, and abroad, and his work is represented in major museum collections.

Eva Meyer-Hermann is a German art historian who has worked for international museums and major private collections for over twenty-five years. She was formerly a curator at the Krefelder Kunstmuseen, Krefeld, and was later director of the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg. Afterward, she was both director and curator of two private art collections in Switzerland, before becoming senior curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Since 2006, she has been an independent curator and writer.