Marlene Dumas is one of the most prominent and influential painters working today. In an era dominated by the mass media and a proliferation of images, her work is a testament to the meaning and potency of painting. Dumas draws on her expansive visual archive and the nuances of language to create intense, psychologically charged works which explore themes such as sexuality, love, death and guilt, often referencing art history and current affairs. Her paintings and drawings are characterized by their extraordinary expressiveness and sometimes controversial subject matter. This fully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanies a major exhibition at the Tate Modern, the Stedelijk Museum and the Fondation Beyeler. Surveying the artist's oeuvre from the mid-70s to the present, it features over 100 of her most important paintings and drawings alongside lesser-known works from the early period of her career. "The Image as Burden" also includes a new interview with the artist; extracts from previously published but lesser-known texts (some available in English for the first time); and a new short story from prize-winning author Colm Toibin written in response to the paintings. Essays and texts from a wide range of contributors examine the key themes and motifs in her work and reflect on Dumas' entire career.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953, Marlene Dumas has lived in Amsterdam since 1976. Over the last three decades she has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the U.S., including shows at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The portrait offers the possibility of observation and introspection, and is at the same time one of the most private and representative artistic genres. But what distinguishes the specifically female gaze? On the occasion of the major fall exhibition 2021 at Fondation Beyeler, this catalog brings together nine women artists from Europe and America from the beginning of modernism to the present day, whose works represent an outstanding contribution to the history of the portrait. The individual view of the artists on themselves and on their surroundings in the course of time is expressed. In the catalog, renowned authors explore the individual artists and their fascinating ways of reflecting on themselves and on others. The featured artists are Mary Cassatt, Marlene Dumas, Frida Kahlo, Lotte Laserstein, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Berthe Morisot, Alice Neel, Elizabeth Peyton, and Cindy Sherman.