Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They
AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German
Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who
By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an
Navigation
Primary Navigation
Home
Singapore
Asia Pacific
World
Business
Entertainment
Sports
Technology
Top Stories
Most Popular
Secondary Navigation
Asia Pacific
World
Search
Search:
Dumas show explores birth, death and in-between
By SARA ROSE,Associated Press Writer AP - Saturday, December 13
NEW YORK - With their washed out faces and burning eyes, the portraits of Marlene Dumas speak of violence and ambiguity.
Dumas gives us the recently murdered and the political; she gives us birth, sex, growth and death; she gives us honesty, distrust, confusion, normalcy and imagination. What she doesn't give us is a "portrait."
"Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave," an exhibit of the South African born artist, opens Sunday at The Museum of Modern Art. The show features over 100 paintings and drawings by Dumas, whose work explores life, death and who we are in between.
The exhibit focuses on Dumas' portraits, all of which use a limited color palate of washed-out whites, blues and greens, dark grays, browns and black. But they are not portraits in a traditional sense.
Like most of her works, the stunning "Measuring Your Own Grave" (2003) is based on a photograph. Painted in black and white, a dancer takes a graceful bow, leaning over at the waist; we see the top of her head, her arms stretched, pushing against the edge of the canvas. It's an innocuous scene, painted from what we can only assume was a happy moment, but Dumas' title changes all that.
Rename this moment and it becomes something else entirely: It could be about the nearness of death or it could be about life, about stretching and taking control. Dumas has taken an image with a clear meaning and made it utterly, beautifully ambiguous.
Her paintings of children are among the most affecting, particularly "The Painter" (1994).
A child stands naked, pale and blurred, the gender left undetermined. The torso is a sickly blue, the left hand red and the right blue. The child seems vulnerable, violated, yet somehow in control with black eyes and expressionless mouth. There is a lack of innocence in Dumas' representation _ this is not a painting of a child per se. On the other hand, maybe it is. Maybe the child was painting, annoyed when the photo was taken: The meaning vacillates between the everyday and the extreme.
While people-centric, Dumas' paintings rely on a wide range of sources, many of which convey a sense that we are seeing something we shouldn't. From her mildly uncomfortable portraits of children _ such as "The Cover-Up" (1994), where a naked child stands with his back to us, or "Imaginary 2" (2002) in which a young girl swings from the gallows _ to her explicit works based on pornographic images, we are witnessing the outcome of a vision that pushes into the edges that define what we should and should not see in a painting.
"Marlene Dumas," which first opened at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, will be at MoMA through Feb. 16, 2009, and then travels to The Menil Collection in Houston.
Email Story
IM Story
Printable View
Blog This
Recommend this article
Average (0 votes)
Sign in to recommend this article »
Most Recommended Stories »
Related Articles: Entertainment & Lifestyle
Hugh Jackman a departure from recent Oscar hostsAP - 1 hour 41 minutes ago
Blur reunion gig sells out in two minutesAFP - Saturday, December 13
Dumas show explores birth, death and in-betweenAP - Saturday, December 13
'American Idol' may ax its charity after 2 yearsAP - Saturday, December 13
Celeb lunchboxes to benefit hunger reliefAP - Saturday, December 13
Most Popular – Entertainment
Viewed
White House mulls urgent new steps on autos
US Senate fails to reach deal on auto bailout
Autism, other disorders linked to post-natal factors: study
Muslim pilgrims stone Satan at the hajj
Sarcasm finds medical use in dementia detection
View Complete List »
Search:
Home
Singapore
Asia Pacific
World
Business
Entertainment
Sports
Technology
Top Stories
Most Popular