Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden - by Leontine Coelewij & Kerryn Greenberg & Helen Sainsbury & Theodora Vischer (Paperback)

About the Book

Issued in connection with an exhibition held at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 6 September 2014-4 January 2015; Tate Modern, London, 5 February-10 May 2015; Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 30 May-13 September 2015.

Book Synopsis

The definitive catalogue on contemporary painter Marlene Dumas, with more than 100 museum-quality reproductions of her most important paintings as well as previously unpublished early works and writings

Marlene Dumas is one of the most prominent and influential painters working today. In an era dominated by the mass media and a proliferation of images, her work is a testament to the meaning and potency of painting. Dumas draws on her expansive visual archive and the nuances of language to create intense, psychologically charged works which explore themes such as sexuality, love, death and guilt, often referencing art history and current affairs. Her paintings and drawings are characterized by their extraordinary expressiveness and sometimes controversial subject matter. This fully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanies the major exhibition at the Tate Modern, the Stedelijk Museum and the Fondation Beyeler. Surveying the artist's oeuvre from the mid-70s to the present, it features over 100 of her most important paintings and drawings alongside lesser-known works from the early period of her career

The book also includes a new interview with the artist; extracts from previously published but lesser-known texts (some available in English for the first time); and a new short story from prize-winning author Colm Tóibín written in response to the paintings. Essays and texts from a wide range of contributors examine the key themes and motifs in her work and reflect on Dumas' entire career.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953, Marlene Dumas has lived in Amsterdam since 1976. Over the last three decades she has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the U.S., including shows at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Review Quotes

The real beauty of Marlene Dumas' painting is in the physicality of human touch present in them, which cannot possibly be done justice on a screen, or on a page for that matter.-- "Country & Town House"

A catalogue of intense, psychologically-charged paintings, which mix art history with popular culture and current affairs.--Victoria Sadler "Huffington Post"

One of the most provocative painters of the human form, the South African-born artist Marlene Dumas doesn't match the stereotype of artist as solitary genius. Her way is chaotic, more responsive and uncertain -- and that is her brilliance.

Perhaps the most celebrated living female painter of the human form, and certainly one of the most provocative contemporary artists, Dumas, in her public persona, doesn't seem given to doubt. She is known for her unflinching approach to sex and death; for portraits of sex workers, corpses and terrorists, among other subjects; for the washed texture of her often thinned paint; for the unloveliness of her palette.--Claire Messud "The New York Times: T Magazine"

The accompanying catalog--edited by the exhibition curators Leontine Coelewij of the Stedelijk Museum, Helen Sainsbury of Tate Modern and Theodora Vischer of the Fondation Beyeler--is a necessity. It contains many additional images and a large selection of Ms. Dumas's oblique, witty, deeply engaging writings.--Karen Wilkin "The Wall Street Journal"

The Image as a Burden, published on the occasion for her current European retrospective, surveys her career from her student work of the early 70's through the ongoing series Great Men. Commentary by scholars and friends accompanies Dumas's own reflections and poems, and a detailed time line runs through the margins. Here, very personal developments are charted alongside world events-watershed moments in the art world and the apartheid state alike-lending the book an unexpected and great scrapbook intimacy.--Johanna Fateman "Bookforum"