Newly reprinted, Against the Wall includes large-scale works
primarily based on media imagery and newspaper clippings
documenting the conflict between Israel and Palestine, exploring
the tension between the photographic documentation of reality and
the constructed, imaginary space of painting. Originally published
in 2010 on the occasion of Against the Wall, Dumas's first solo
presentation at David Zwirner in New York, this much sought-after
exhibition catalogue-which sold out shortly after publication-has
been reprinted to coincide with the artist's 2014-2015 European
retrospective exhibition The Image as Burden, organized by Tate
Modern, London in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam and the Fondation Beyeler, Basel. Described by Deborah
Solomon in a New York Times profile as "one of contemporary art's
most compelling painters," Marlene Dumas has continuously explored
the complex range of human emotions, often probing questions of
gender, race, sexuality, and economic inequality through her
dramatic and at times haunting figural compositions. Throughout her
career, the internationally renowned artist has continually created
lyrically charged compositions that eulogize the frailties of the
human body, probing issues of love and melancholy. At times her
subjects are more topical, merging socio-political themes with
personal experience and art-historical antecedents to reflect
unique perspectives on the most salient and controversial issues
facing contemporary society. The large-scale works included in
Against the Wall are primarily based on media imagery and newspaper
clippings documenting the conflict between Israel and Palestine,
exploring the tension between the photographic documentation of
reality and the constructed, imaginary space of painting. The Wall,
the painting that began the series, at first appears to present a
scene at the Western Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall), an
important site of religious pilgrimage located in Jerusalem.
However, this work is based upon a photograph from a newspaper that
portrayed a group of Orthodox Jews on their way to pray at Rachel's
Tomb in Bethlehem. Through her delicate treatment of every scene,
Dumas destabilizes preconceived notions about what, in fact, is
being pictured-engaging the often ambiguous nature of ideas like
truth or justice. "In a sense they are my first landscape
paintings," Dumas further notes in the catalogue, "or should I say
'territory paintings.' That is why they are so big." The somber
color plates reproduced in the publication are given context by
Dumas's own musings, a text framed as a letter to David Zwirner in
which she tries to tell him "about the 'why' " of this powerful
series.
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