David Zwirner is pleased to announce Against the Wall, the first solo exhibition by Marlene Dumas since the artist joined the gallery in 2008. The exhibition features new works from 2009 and 2010. Known for her unique approach to canvas and her thought-provoking subject matter, Marlene Dumas is widely considered one of today’s most important painters. Her work is characterized by a sensual and gestural technique that is also swift, dry, and minimal, as if under pressure to leave only what is necessary. While she lives and works ... Read more

David Zwirner is pleased to announce Against the Wall, the first solo exhibition by Marlene Dumas since the artist joined the gallery in 2008. The exhibition features new works from 2009 and 2010.

Known for her unique approach to canvas and her thought-provoking subject matter, Marlene Dumas is widely considered one of today’s most important painters. Her work is characterized by a sensual and gestural technique that is also swift, dry, and minimal, as if under pressure to leave only what is necessary. While she lives and works in The Netherlands, the artist was born and raised in South Africa, and her paintings have often drawn from her own experiences of living with apartheid. For over thirty years, Dumas has merged political discourse, personal experience, and art historical references in a richly layered body of work. Her paintings integrate complex themes-ranging from segregation, eroticism, or, more generally, the politics of love and war-to explore how image-making is implicitly involved not only in the cultural processes of objectification, but also in the way in which events are documented
and collectively understood.

Dumas has been the subject of many one-person exhibitions at such institutions as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2007); Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan (2007-2008); The Art Institute of Chicago (2003); Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito, Venice (2003); De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands (2002); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2001); The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2001); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (1998); and Tate Gallery, London (1996). In 1995 she represented The Netherlands at the 46th Venice Biennale (together with Marijke van Warmerdam and Maria Roosen).

Her work is in the collections of major museums and public institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; and Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich.

Find out more about Dumas at http://www.davidzwirner.com/