Marlene Dumas, the Male Gaze: the objectification of the body at the mercy of the voyeur

Being human means accepting the paradoxes of perception: Marlene Dumas and her digging into the power of art. The exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, Venice – a review

The meeting of opposites. The monographic exhibition ‘Marlene Dumas. open-end’

Starting from the title of the monographic exhibition ‘Marlene Dumas. open-end‘, the artist Marlene Dumas generates in the spectator’s imagination a Janus-like figure of dualism; once opened the door of Palazzo Grassi in Venice, which is hosting the show until January the 8^th, it’s evident that the painter has turned the heads of the mythological character letting them face each other and creating a harmony of opposites: love and death, violence and gentleness, victim and executioner.

All the themes are in communication with one another, all represented on large canvases juxtaposed with smaller works. The exhibition, curated by the artist herself in collaboration with Caroline Bourgeois, features a corpus of over 100 works from the Pinault Collection and from international museums and private collections, offering a visible dialogue from a multitude of historical periods, from 1984 to the present day through paintings produced specifically for the exhibition.

 The title ‘open-end‘ suggests a sense of fluidity and dynamism. The meanings of the works are multiple and find solutions in individual viewers, in lockdown that finds its antagonist in the resurrection of the galleries, in death that makes way for life: a journey through the paradoxes of human beings unfolds along the two floors of Palazzo Grassi.

Caroline Bourgeois about Marlene Dumas: freedom means taking risks

«She is always afraid but she still goes there» says curator Caroline Bourgeois about Marlene Dumas. The only way to reach the spectrum of human feelings is to accept reality and how it can be perceived. The acceptance phase arises from the desire for discovery and the impossibility of turning one’s back on mystery. The process admits fear as much as any other possible feeling, but it finds fulfillment and meaning if we allow these feelings to pass through us by lowering all defenses: Marlene Dumas takes the risk.

«She manages to have a pain that allows her to go anywhere» attests Bourgeois. Freedom depends on the mindset. The artist opens her inner doors to the outside world and in order to see what’s there, she needs to accept time, to face her age and to be conscious of the change of reality.

The painter is dressed with courage and nothing else in ‘Drunk‘, her self portrait realized in the middle of the night: a common state of being and yet so hidden by contemporary demureness. If Degas’ ‘Absinthe‘ at the height of impressionism reveals a sickness of the soul, Dumas goes so far as not to censor the effect on the body. A naked physicality that, while not sexually captivating, conquers by its freedom of expression. It’s a tale about vulnerability and female power, which carries on in other episodes like ‘Drunken Mermaid‘: the antithesis between seducer and seduced -by alcohol-, between composure and abandonment, between the feminine and the ungainly alters the imagery of the marine figure, giving her irremediable humanity.

«With wine, poetry or virtue – the choice is yours. But intoxicate yourself». Baudelaire wrote, which seems to be in a constant dialogue with Marlene Dumas.

Poetry according to Marlene Dumas

«I would like my paintings to be like poems. Poems are like sentences that have taken their clothes off. The meaning of a poem is what its beat and rhythms do, how the words move on the page. Poetry is writing that breathes and jumps and leaves spaces open, so we can read between the lines»: that’s what Marlene Dumas wishes for her works.

The artist whispers to the spectators something they can’t fully hear: the noises of everyone’s identities convey the message and translate it into a sensory feast that is never the same as the artist’s. Art is seduction that leads us to the doors of perception, and the artist «is only an artist if he is himself and another person at the same time». 

Dumas resonates with Baudelaire’s philosophy and in addition to paying homage to him through portraits, she absorbs his ideology. Dumas lets herself be possessed by something: she doesn’t think of herself like the author, but she accepts that something is going through her and she offers it with the aim of making people feel. The generosity of her work stays in the ability to offer questions, not to give answers.

The title of Dumas’ artwork ‘The Death of the Author‘ refers to the concept she believes in: in the essay ‘La mort de l’auteur‘, the French philosopher and semiotician Roland Barthes asserts that the opinion formulated around a book should not be influenced by the author. The creator has to be freed from responsibility for the interpretation of his text: this is the source of the reader’s freedom. This is poetry.

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The power of erotism: Dumas’ works in the unleashing of sexual energy

Poetry and freedom find expression in Dumas’ works in the unleashing of erotic energy. The artist’s relationship with sex and the body overturns contemporary taboos by leading the viewer before forms and truths without shame or censorship. In Dumas’ unvarnished dialogue with eroticism, she finds a voice in the power of women, a theme that has developed in the artist’s life layering experiences since her childhood.

Dumas was born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa, during the apartheid regime; it was in 1976 that she moved to Europe, settling in Amsterdam, the ‘magic centrum’ of Europe and framing women and minorities in a boundary-free, progressive context. Against the libertarian backdrop of the 1970s, Dumas discovers porn and films censored in South Africa, constructing a proud gaze aligned on the side of those in the pursuit of freedom. 

In the work ‘The Visitor‘, Dumas empathizes with the characters on the canvas and subverts the canons prevalent in the collective imagination as proposed by Picasso in his ‘Mademoiselle d’Avignon‘: six prostitutes with their backs turned in an atmosphere of suspension and expectation are facing the entrance to a room, from which the male client is assumed to enter.

Male Gaze according to the artist Marlene Dumas

The scene manipulates the usual point of view and leaves no room for the ‘Male Gaze,’ theorised in the 1970s as an example of objectification of the female body at the mercy of the voyeur. In Dumas’ painting the viewer finds no faces to dominate with the gaze, identifying himself with the still mysterious visitor.

Continuing to navigate the tension between positive and negative energy, in ‘D-Rection‘ a man is looking down at his erect dark purple penis, not at his viewers. He is interested in his own sexuality, but being alone, he does not know what to do with it, and the penis does not translate into any erotic tool.

The declination of sexuality in Dumas reaches the threshold of sensuality. In ‘Lips‘ a body part takes on a captivating visual meaning. Softness and an invitation to approach and foretaste a kiss imbued with eroticism and passion transpire from the canvas.

Marlene Dumas dares to go up to unpleasant colors

The erotic play of the human body and soul does not end in forms; Dumas uses the tool of color to make the scene close and realistic on the emotional level. In painting, colors are like music. The color palette is defined by the subject and the use Dumas does of it creates a spontaneous and immediate dialogue with the viewer.

Dumas dares to go up to unpleasant colors in order to not fall in the trap of seduction or manipulation of the spectator; her intent is to make the action felt more than if it was shown in a realistic representation. In Dumas’ paint ‘Fingers‘ the action is taken alive.

The coldness of the blue and turquoise gradations are in contrast with the heat of the act: nobody will ever know who’s ass is the painted one, who is the lady, how does she look like; what is clear is the self consciousness and the shameless that guide the viewer in an hypnotic stare.

The leitmotif of Dumas’ performative way of making art is the use of the binomial liquidity-darkness: the process starts at night, on the floor and it’s related to the materiality of the elements used. The color is not the result of modeling. It is tangible, authentic, unaltered. The oil paints and the ink on paper works share the insolence and anarchy of gestures.

The past as a dictionary for the present. Dumas’ work is linked to history

Dumas’ stages emotions and actions that have already been aired in her personal and social lives, emphasising their extremes. With absence of judgment Dumas’ work is linked to history. References from the past teem on her canvases: paints are not pedagogic or an explanation of what happened.

Hers is not a work of chronicle, it’s a reappropriation of reality: the creativity germinates between the pages of newspapers and Polaroids taken long ago, and she revisits them by infusing them with a soul built on her vision of the world. The use of the pre-existing medium means being aware of the stimulus to which today’s man is subjected.

The resulting Dumas’ gaze is roaring. The attitude is an impetus that opposes sobriety. Art is the figuration of an extreme that rebels against the other and shows the ghosts from history with the effects they have on current times.

In ‘The White Disease‘ the portrait of someone with skin problems, based on a picture taken in a dermatological clinic, becomes a way to reflect about the white supremacy, the discrimination and the racism as a collective spirit illness.

Pier Paolo Pasolini and the language of imagination

Starring in Dumas’ painted tales is imagination. The ability to construct images with the ingredients of fantasy, remixed with elements of historical or realistic origin, is what allows Marlene Dumas to immerse herself in a context without boundaries. The artist’s imaginative universe takes shape from cinema and its authors. 

Admiration for Pier Paolo Pasolini – honored with a portrait of him and the paintings ‘Pasolini’s Mother‘ and ‘Mamma Roma‘ and ‘Omega’s eyes‘, inspired by Anna Magnani – draws on his controversial being and translates into a search for ambiguity.

The surrealist avant-garde with Bunuel, Man Ray and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau leads into paths out of the ordinary; Jean Genet, to whom Dumas dedicated the works ‘Abdallah Bentaga (Jean Genet’s first long time lover)‘ and ‘Mohamed El-Katrani (Jean Genet’s last companion and lover)‘, shares Pasolini’s focus on minorities; Ingmar Bergman tickles the eerie imagery that spills over into the ‘Betrayal‘ series.

Along with others, these filmmakers were selected by Marlene Dumas for the cycle of projections ‘A Kind of Tenderness. Marlene Dumas between words and images.‘: on the screen of Palazzo Grassi’s theater, the painter’s sources of inspiration teach the language of imagination.

Marlene Dumas

‘Marlene Dumas. open-end‘ is the first major solo exhibition of Marlene Dumas in Italy. It is hosted at Palazzo Grassi in Venice as part of the programme of monographic exhibitions dedicated to major contemporary artists organised by the Pinault Collection.

Elizabeth Germana Arthur