Talk:Marlene Dumas

Transparent self-publicity

The whole article, especially the opening paragraph, reads like a publicity brochure rather than a neutral encyclopaedia article. It is articles such as this which make a mockery of Wikipedia as a serious, properly edited, encyclopaedia.

Yes,I certainly see the point of the {{tone|date=January 2015}} template that was placed in the article (I've since deleted the rather egregious copyright violation material responsible for all this). When I saw that, I did a Google search (they're easy to undertake - just copy-paste a substantial section of the copy into the search engine and see what comes up). After discounting mirror sites, I found several websites that substantially quoted the lede, but these as far as I could tell were all post March 2013 at which time the lede already existed in its present form.

There no question at all that Marlene Dumas is one of our most sought after contemporary artists in the sale-room, while the retrospective exhibitions at the Stedelijk and Tate establish her as one of our most notable living artists. The question therefore is how much of the bio comes from her agents and galleries. Frankly this doesn't trouble me too much, but I can understand the potential for abuse. All I can countenance there is vigilance by editors.

As for the tone, I join with you in being irritated by this kind of thing. It would be pleasant if editors were always careful to maintain a distinction between commentary and criticism in their comments when appraising works of art. Not all do, and there is unfortunately a minority who effectively abuse their editing privileges essentially to deliver their own critical opinions for the benefit of their Talk page circles (edit counts, admin status, academic tenure ... it's not just Talk page jerkfesting necessarily the motivation). Effective administration by the visual arts community would be helpful there. Of course the opinion of properly sourced critics is always welcome (and important to add in this particular case, looking at the edit History I don't see any of the usual suspects I am aware of).

Unfortunately I don't have the time to improve this article. I agree it needs attention. C1cada (talk) 13:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Copyright violation

I am sorry to see that editors here did not think to respond to the remarks I made above.

I have established that much of the text here is a copyright violation of material supplied by the Menil Gallery in support of it's June to March 2009 exhibition. You can see this material here https://www.menil.org/assets/marlenedumas_final.pdf, an example paragraph of which is as follows:

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.

On 22 October 2009, an editor who appears to have been only briefly active on Wikipedia, made the following edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marlene_Dumas&diff=321398144&oldid=318615295. An example section of text is as follows:

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.

The citation for the edit references this web page http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/267131/marlene-dumas. A glance at it suffices to show that, if not outrightly spurious, it simply doesn't address the critical remarks made in the edit.

In short, the edit is a blatant copyright violation which needs to be addressed. Quoting and citing the source (i.e. Menhil Gallery) strikes me as inadequate and I'm not prepared to copy edit a single source to comply with Wikipedia standards.

I'm therefore deleting the relevant passages. c1cada (talk) 14:03, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm also deleting material in the lede that I notice is also a direct quotation from this source (and removing the template now that everything is fixed). c1cada (talk) 08:15, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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moved CV material off main space

Moved CV material off main space. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 15:06, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Selected Works

• "Smoke" (2018)
• "Adonis" (2018)
• "Venus With Body of Adonis" (2015–16)
• "Losing (Her Meaning)” (1988) Sold $1.5 million
• "The Blindfolded" (2002)
• "Feather Stola" (2000) Sold for $307,663 in 2003.
• "Velvet and Lace (Schnabel Meets Baselitz)," (1999)
• "Ryman's Brides" (1997)
• "Couples" (1994)
• "The Image as Burden" (1993)
• "Young Boys," (1993) Sold for $993,600 in 2005.
• "Black Drawings" (1991–92)
• "Baby" (1990)
• "Wet Dreams" (1987)
• "The Teacher" (1987) Sold $3.34 million in 2005.
• "Jule-die Vrou" (1985)
• "Evil is Banal" (1984)

Awards

• Thérèse Van Duyl-Schwartze Prijs, Netherlands, 1989
• Sandbergprijs voor beeldende Kunst, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, 1989
• Gunther Fruhtrunk Preis, Akademieverein München, 1995
• David Roëll Prijs Voor Beeldende Kunst, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Amsterdam, 1998
• Coutts Contemporary Art Award 1998, Coutts Bank, Monte Carlo, 1998
• Kunstpreis Der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Art Prize), 2007
• Honorary Doctorate Faculty of Humanities, Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa, Rhodes University Grahamstown, 2010
• Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy Honoris Causa, University of Stellenbosch, 2011
• Rolf Schock Prize in the Visual Arts, Stockholm, 2011
• Honorary Degree, Doctor of Fine Arts, University of Cape Town, 2012
• Johannes Vermeer Award 2012, Delft, 2012
• Honorary Doctorate, University of Antwerp, 2015
• Hans Theo-Richter Preis Für Zeichnung und Grafik 2017, Sächsischen Akademie der Künste, Dresden, 2017

Selected exhibitions

2020 Marlene Dumas: 25 years of collaboration, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp

2018 Myths and Mortals. David Zwirner Gallery, New York (cite: )

2014-2015 The Image as Burden. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Exhibition was named after her small 1993 painting depicting one figure carrying another.

2008-2009 First American retrospective exhibition. Measuring Your Own Grave. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York; Menil Collection, Houston

2008 First South African exhibition. Intimate Relations, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg

2003 Venice Biennale.

2001 Marlene Dumas: One Hundred Models and Endless Rejects, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

1997 First Asian exhibition Young Boys - Part II, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

1993 First United States museum exhibition Marlene Dumas, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

1992 First North American exhibition Insight, Axe-Néo-7, Hull Québec

1979 First Solo exhibition. Marlene Dumas, Galerie Annemarie de Kruyff, Paris

References