Customer Reviews

Marlene Dumas (Contemporary Artists)

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I had seen a self-portrait done by Marlene Dumas in an art book and it blew me away. I did not know who she was or her main specialty. I knew I had to see more of her body of work... I quickly found this Phaedon publication, crossed my fingers and ordered it. When it finally arrived...I poured over it. It is now a few months later and I am still pouring over it. I particularly like the interviews and personal input Helene has had into the publication – this is her book and her philosophies – she puts herself out there for you to see her and to "get inside her head". The layout is very contemporary which adds to the presentation of her imagery. The reproductions of her work are plentiful and I am impressed with the range of her work through her different "periods". The text is concise and confronting in its subject matter, ranging from her life in apartheid Africa to the freedom of Amsterdam. This book is a must for art students and art lovers alike. It holds the key to an modern artist and, as an art student, has inspired me. I am looking forward to seeing more publications about her current work. I definitely give this book 5 stars – plus 5 stars for a major contemporary artist.

This book is one of my favourites. In Marlene Dumas, I found an artist that I totally relate to. I find her philosophy on her art practice refreshing and have enjoyed reading her own opinions. I am currently studying art at University, and she definitely is an artist that has gone against the mainstream of traditional drawing and painting techniques.

The layout of the book is easy to read, with many coloured pictures of her work.

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, August 10

Marlene Dumas is a fabulous contemporary artist, straight forward...no tricks, no formulas..like in the old days.

Its a beautiful book is excellent condition

The Phaidon series on Contemporary Artists is always a sign of quality -- both in the reproductions and the editorial slant of the books.

I'm enamored of this one because it is the earliest book I've been able to find about Marlene Dumas.

This is what I look for in an art book, many large good quality reproductions of the work with a minimum of pretentious text. Let me look at the images first and decide what I think about them, then I can go read what the artist or some critic/historian thinks, not the other way around, as far too many books do.

I like the fact that Dumas does what she feels at the time she does it, so there is a lot of variety in this book, it is not the same piece over and over again. She is not like a lot of artist, simply becoming clichés of themselves at the 1st signs of success, she continues to experiment and try different things, which she is criticized for, however, I think that criticism is short sited. There is something fresh, loose and free about her work that I admire. Granted I don't like her work as much as when I first viewed it a few years ago (reflecting my own development as an artist) but it is still one of my favorite books and I would recommend it to anyone interested in contemporary art.

My only critic comes from my own bias, in that I find some of her content overly simplified clichés of women's issues and feminist theory. .........And I'm annoyed by the fact that If I, as a male artist, created some of the images she's created, I'd be lynched by NOW(or some other WWB-Whiny Women's Brigade as I've coined them) as being a misogynist pig.