Marlene Dumas
Encyclopedia
Marlene Dumas is a South African born artist and painter who lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Stressing both the physical reality of the human body and its psychological value, Dumas tends
to paint her subjects at the extreme fringes of life’s cycle, from birth to death, with a continual
emphasis on classical modes of representation in Western art, such as the nude or the funerary
portrait. By working within and also transgressing these traditional historical antecedents,
Dumas uses the human figure as a means to critique contemporary ideas of racial, sexual, and
social identity.
just beyond the city limits in the semi-rural Kuils River region. As a student of painting at the
University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Arts during the early 1970s, Dumas gained
exposure to the decade’s preoccupation with conceptualism and art theory. It was
photography, however – the work of Diane Arbus, in particular – that would have the greatest
impact on the young artist during this period, introducing her to the “burden of the image” and
the complexities of representing the human form. Accepting a scholarship to study at the
Dutch artist-run institute de Ateliers, Dumas moved in 1976 to Amsterdam, where she
continues to live and work. During these formative years, Dumas explored the relation
between image and text in collages, combining clipped photographs, text, and gestural drawing
movements.
an ever-developing archive of personal snapshots, Polaroid photographs, and thousands of
images torn from magazines and newspapers. A painting is never a literal rendition of a
photographic source. For one painting, she may crop an original image, focusing on the figures
in the far background of a photograph. For another she may adjust the color, using her
characteristic palette of grays, blues, and reds. Dumas’s portraits remove subjects from their
original context and strip them of any identifiable information. This source material allows the
artist to capture her human subjects in their own moment in history, yet provides enough
distance for the subject to be quietly and respectfully observed: the awkward babies (The First
People I-IV), a captured man (The Blindfolded Man), a posing pregnant woman (Pregnant
Image), the face of a notable writer (Death of the Author), or the artist herself (Self Portrait at
Noon).
The personal and the historical collide in Dumas’s portraits. In Dead Marilyn (2008), a female
corpse fills the expanse of a small canvas. This work marked the beginning of a group of
paintings of mourning and weeping women, made in the year after the artist’s mother died.
Dumas’s treatment of this infamous image of Marilyn Monroe reveals layers of meaning
beyond its original source, which was an autopsy photograph. Smeared brushstrokes of white,
blue-green, and gray highlight the subject’s blotchy face. The small size of the work and the
delicate rendering makes it a portrait of intimacy. Notions of celebrity, sensationalism, and the
mystery of the actress’s own personal narrative come into question. In The Pilgrim (2006),
Dumas shifts her critical interests in the public notoriety to an image of Osama bin Laden,
whose relatively peaceful eyes and mild smile greatly contrast with the media’s typical
portrayals. Seemingly cropped from its original photo, we have little sense of context, let alone
what lies beyond the borders of the canvas. Stripping her subject of his public persona and
historical importance, Dumas leaves us with a critique of both politics and identity. She has said that her works are better appreciated as originals, to mirror the at times shocking, discomforting intimacy she captures with her works.
The artist is also an avid educator, finding that:
Her first major American museum exhibition, a midcareer retrospective entitled "Measuring Your Own Grave", opened in June 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and moved to the Museum of Modern Art
in New York City. The artist is represented by David Zwirner
, New York.
to paint her subjects at the extreme fringes of life’s cycle, from birth to death, with a continual
emphasis on classical modes of representation in Western art, such as the nude or the funerary
portrait. By working within and also transgressing these traditional historical antecedents,
Dumas uses the human figure as a means to critique contemporary ideas of racial, sexual, and
social identity.
Life
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953, Marlene Dumas was raised on her family’s vineyardjust beyond the city limits in the semi-rural Kuils River region. As a student of painting at the
University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Arts during the early 1970s, Dumas gained
exposure to the decade’s preoccupation with conceptualism and art theory. It was
photography, however – the work of Diane Arbus, in particular – that would have the greatest
impact on the young artist during this period, introducing her to the “burden of the image” and
the complexities of representing the human form. Accepting a scholarship to study at the
Dutch artist-run institute de Ateliers, Dumas moved in 1976 to Amsterdam, where she
continues to live and work. During these formative years, Dumas explored the relation
between image and text in collages, combining clipped photographs, text, and gestural drawing
movements.
Work
Working almost exclusively from photographic sources, Dumas draws her subject material froman ever-developing archive of personal snapshots, Polaroid photographs, and thousands of
images torn from magazines and newspapers. A painting is never a literal rendition of a
photographic source. For one painting, she may crop an original image, focusing on the figures
in the far background of a photograph. For another she may adjust the color, using her
characteristic palette of grays, blues, and reds. Dumas’s portraits remove subjects from their
original context and strip them of any identifiable information. This source material allows the
artist to capture her human subjects in their own moment in history, yet provides enough
distance for the subject to be quietly and respectfully observed: the awkward babies (The First
People I-IV), a captured man (The Blindfolded Man), a posing pregnant woman (Pregnant
Image), the face of a notable writer (Death of the Author), or the artist herself (Self Portrait at
Noon).
The personal and the historical collide in Dumas’s portraits. In Dead Marilyn (2008), a female
corpse fills the expanse of a small canvas. This work marked the beginning of a group of
paintings of mourning and weeping women, made in the year after the artist’s mother died.
Dumas’s treatment of this infamous image of Marilyn Monroe reveals layers of meaning
beyond its original source, which was an autopsy photograph. Smeared brushstrokes of white,
blue-green, and gray highlight the subject’s blotchy face. The small size of the work and the
delicate rendering makes it a portrait of intimacy. Notions of celebrity, sensationalism, and the
mystery of the actress’s own personal narrative come into question. In The Pilgrim (2006),
Dumas shifts her critical interests in the public notoriety to an image of Osama bin Laden,
whose relatively peaceful eyes and mild smile greatly contrast with the media’s typical
portrayals. Seemingly cropped from its original photo, we have little sense of context, let alone
what lies beyond the borders of the canvas. Stripping her subject of his public persona and
historical importance, Dumas leaves us with a critique of both politics and identity. She has said that her works are better appreciated as originals, to mirror the at times shocking, discomforting intimacy she captures with her works.
The artist is also an avid educator, finding that:
- teaching [is] a very important thing, and not only because I teach [the students] things, but also because we have a dialogue, and you see what you really want. You find things out. I still believe in the Socratic dialogue. Art is really something that you learn from being around people.
Her first major American museum exhibition, a midcareer retrospective entitled "Measuring Your Own Grave", opened in June 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and moved to the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City. The artist is represented by David Zwirner
David Zwirner
David Zwirner is a gallerist and art dealer and owner of the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City. In 2010 Zwirner was listed at number four in the ArtReview annual "Power 100" list.-Early Life:...
, New York.
Collections
Work by the artist is held in the public collections of various museums, including the ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Bawag Foundation, Vienna, Austria; Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Centro de Artes Visuales Helga de Alvear, Caceres, Spain; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; De Ateliers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; The Flemish Ministry of Culture, Brussels, Belgium; Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain Picardie, Amiens, France; Gemeentemuseum, Arnhem, The Netherlands; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, The Netherlands; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa; Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Kasteel Wijlre / Hedge House, Wijlre, The Netherlands; Krannert Art Museum and Kinhead Pavilion, Champaign, Illinois; Kunsthalle zu Kiel der Christian-Albrecths-Universität, Kiel, Denmark; Lieve Van Gorp Foundation for Women Artists, Antwerp, Belgium; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum De Pont, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Museum het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium; Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands; Modern and Contemporary Museum of Art, Strasbourg, France; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina; Paleis Vught, Vught, The Netherlands; The Saatchi Gallery, London, England; Scheringa Museum voor Realisme, Spanbroek, The Netherlands; Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich, Germany; Stadsgalerij Heerlen, Heerlen, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum, Gouda, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Schiedam, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium; Tate Modern, London, England; and ZKM Zentrum für kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, GermanyExternal links
- website Marlene Dumas
- Marlene Dumas at David Zwirner
- Selected Press at David Zwirner
- "Figuring Marlene Dumas," profile by Deborah SolomonDeborah SolomonDeborah Solomon is an American art critic, journalist and biographer. She is best-known for her weekly column, "Questions For," which ran in The New York Times Magazine from 2003 to 2011.-Early life and education:...
in The New York Times MagazineThe New York Times MagazineThe New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
,July 15, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15dumas-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin - The documentary film 'Miss Interpreted' follows Dumas' activities for a period of six months while she prepares for an exhibition. Available on DocsOnline
- Marlene Dumas: Images and Words images, words, works.
- Dutch Master http://www.wmagazine.com/artdesign/2008/06/marlene_dumas Interview with the artist in W magazine
- Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave Brief description of the artist's exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles
- Zeno X Gallery - Marlene Dumas images, biography and cv.
- The Saatchi Gallery - Marlene Dumas