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Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas (b. 1953) is a South African-born, Amsterdam-based painter, and one of Holland’s most internationally admired artists. Dumas recalls in her work the painterly gestures of Expressionism, whilst combining the critical distance of Conceptual art with the pleasures of eroticism. Through her delicately painted oil-on-canvas or ink-and-watercolour depictions of the female form as well as portraits of children and erotic scenes, she comments on the state of painting today. What does it mean to be a woman working within the predominantly male genre of expressionist painting? The artist often depicts their expressions, their body and facial typologies, their self-image, their ideals.
The relationships between art and female beauty – or between art-historical models and twentieth-century supermodels – are constant themes in her work. Dumas does not paint from life but deliberately chooses ‘stock’ images from a variety of sources, from magazine cuttings to picture postcards to Old Master paintings, as re-observed through her contemporary perspective. Since the late 1970s she has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions at the Tate Gallery, London (1996), the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (1998), the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp (1999) and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2002). In 1995 she represented the Netherlands at the 46th Venice Biennale. Dutch art critic Dominic van den Boogerd surveys themes in Dumas’ work in relation to a range of conceptual legacies in depictions of the human figure. New York artist Barbara Bloom interviews Dumas on questions contemporary women artists are asked, from issues of intellectual process to the representation of the self. Art journalist and former Editor of Vogue Italia Mariuccia Casadio focuses on Dumas’ painting Josephine (1997), reflecting on the iconic legacy of Josephine Baker. For her Artist’s Choice Dumas has selected two Oscar Wilde, whose story ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’ inspired the artist’s early series of works on the theme of mermaids; and Jean Genet, whose autobiography Le Journal du voleur (1949, trans. Thief’s Journal, 1964) is excerpted here. Marlene Dumas has often acted as a spokesperson for her work; the Artist’s Writings section features many such seminal texts on her own art as well as meditations on love, religion, politics, and a discussion of Goya’s painting The Fates .
The relationships between art and female beauty – or between art-historical models and twentieth-century supermodels – are constant themes in her work. Dumas does not paint from life but deliberately chooses ‘stock’ images from a variety of sources, from magazine cuttings to picture postcards to Old Master paintings, as re-observed through her contemporary perspective. Since the late 1970s she has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions at the Tate Gallery, London (1996), the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (1998), the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp (1999) and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2002). In 1995 she represented the Netherlands at the 46th Venice Biennale. Dutch art critic Dominic van den Boogerd surveys themes in Dumas’ work in relation to a range of conceptual legacies in depictions of the human figure. New York artist Barbara Bloom interviews Dumas on questions contemporary women artists are asked, from issues of intellectual process to the representation of the self. Art journalist and former Editor of Vogue Italia Mariuccia Casadio focuses on Dumas’ painting Josephine (1997), reflecting on the iconic legacy of Josephine Baker. For her Artist’s Choice Dumas has selected two Oscar Wilde, whose story ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’ inspired the artist’s early series of works on the theme of mermaids; and Jean Genet, whose autobiography Le Journal du voleur (1949, trans. Thief’s Journal, 1964) is excerpted here. Marlene Dumas has often acted as a spokesperson for her work; the Artist’s Writings section features many such seminal texts on her own art as well as meditations on love, religion, politics, and a discussion of Goya’s painting The Fates .
- GenresArt
160 pages, Paperback
First published March 30, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 30, 2024
Dumas: “Sometimes I think I totally dislike people, while on the other hand I’m supposed to be the kindly humanist. Isn’t it Andre Breton who said, I paint to be loved?”
Bloom: “Isn’t there an expression; once stupid, always stupid?”
Dumas: “There is; ‘as stupid as a painter.’ Marcel Duchamp said that.”
Very witty book that bring up interesting thoughts from the South African, artificially blonde painter Marlene Dumas. Thoughtprovoking from start to finish, with lots of pictures of her paintings in the middle to make the read easier on the brain. This book made me want to live inside her head (but only for a short while).
Bloom: “Isn’t there an expression; once stupid, always stupid?”
Dumas: “There is; ‘as stupid as a painter.’ Marcel Duchamp said that.”
Very witty book that bring up interesting thoughts from the South African, artificially blonde painter Marlene Dumas. Thoughtprovoking from start to finish, with lots of pictures of her paintings in the middle to make the read easier on the brain. This book made me want to live inside her head (but only for a short while).
August 8, 2010
One of the Finest Monographs of Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas is one of those artists that seems to touch everyone who visits her art in a profound way. Though her paintings are deceptively simple in execution, they are so filled with emotional energy and ideas and statements about the world in which we live that she simply cannot be ignored. Divided into six well written sections we are allowed a survey of her place in art today, an overview of her iconic images, interviews with the artist and sections on the artist's choices in the writings of others (Oscar Wilde and Jean Genet) and her own writings about the state of art today and her own art. But these essays and written contributions, important and informative though they are, do not begin to match the impact of slowly leafing through this book of hundreds of images produced in exacting color.
'What does death have to do with sex? Youth with terrorism? Immigration with desire and mourning? ' These questions supply fodder for her paintings that explore these areas in depth. Many of Dumas' painting are head portraits that immediately jump into the viewer's psyche and hold on forever. Still others are of figures, female and male, exploring their own sexuality, seemingly for us, the viewer, to understand: '10 inch' and 'D-rection' are powerful images of male nudes, while 'Fingers', '(Like a) Chambermaid', 'Morning Dew', and 'Turkish Girl' are equally striking female nudes. There are images of the dead as in 'Likeness 1' and 'Likeness 2', but there are also images of groups of people as in the terrifying 'Young Boys' or the wryly humorous 'We Were All in Love with the Cyclops' and 'Ryman's Brides'.
The book closes with a fine piece of writing by Ilaria Bonacossa: "Thus Dumas's works are constructed around desire that exists only once it is articulated, so that painting itself becomes something of a Lacanian attempt to provide, even if only for a moment, the representation of the lack born from the impossibility of satisfying desire. Just as an image 'takes on meaning through the process of looking', Dumas's work embodies the tension between imagination and reality, as well as the struggle between the eye and the hand - and between the eye and the 'I'." This is a superb book that allows us to truly investigate the reasons why Marlene Dumas has become on of the world's most important artists.
Grady Harp
Marlene Dumas is one of those artists that seems to touch everyone who visits her art in a profound way. Though her paintings are deceptively simple in execution, they are so filled with emotional energy and ideas and statements about the world in which we live that she simply cannot be ignored. Divided into six well written sections we are allowed a survey of her place in art today, an overview of her iconic images, interviews with the artist and sections on the artist's choices in the writings of others (Oscar Wilde and Jean Genet) and her own writings about the state of art today and her own art. But these essays and written contributions, important and informative though they are, do not begin to match the impact of slowly leafing through this book of hundreds of images produced in exacting color.
'What does death have to do with sex? Youth with terrorism? Immigration with desire and mourning? ' These questions supply fodder for her paintings that explore these areas in depth. Many of Dumas' painting are head portraits that immediately jump into the viewer's psyche and hold on forever. Still others are of figures, female and male, exploring their own sexuality, seemingly for us, the viewer, to understand: '10 inch' and 'D-rection' are powerful images of male nudes, while 'Fingers', '(Like a) Chambermaid', 'Morning Dew', and 'Turkish Girl' are equally striking female nudes. There are images of the dead as in 'Likeness 1' and 'Likeness 2', but there are also images of groups of people as in the terrifying 'Young Boys' or the wryly humorous 'We Were All in Love with the Cyclops' and 'Ryman's Brides'.
The book closes with a fine piece of writing by Ilaria Bonacossa: "Thus Dumas's works are constructed around desire that exists only once it is articulated, so that painting itself becomes something of a Lacanian attempt to provide, even if only for a moment, the representation of the lack born from the impossibility of satisfying desire. Just as an image 'takes on meaning through the process of looking', Dumas's work embodies the tension between imagination and reality, as well as the struggle between the eye and the hand - and between the eye and the 'I'." This is a superb book that allows us to truly investigate the reasons why Marlene Dumas has become on of the world's most important artists.
Grady Harp
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May 21, 2008I absolutely adore Dumas' paintings, her images are so engaging, beautiful and provocative. This book encompasses her most important works and is worth investing in - I THINK.
February 4, 2009
A great contemporary painter.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews