Marlene Dumas: The Image As Burden - Softcover

A catalogue of intense, psychologically-charged paintings, which mix art history with popular culture and current affairs.--Victoria Sadler "Huffington Post "

The accompanying catalog--edited by the exhibition curators Leontine Coelewij of the Stedelijk Museum, Helen Sainsbury of Tate Modern and Theodora Vischer of the Fondation Beyeler--is a necessity. It contains many additional images and a large selection of Ms. Dumas's oblique, witty, deeply engaging writings.--Karen Wilkin "The Wall Street Journal "

The Image as a Burden, published on the occasion for her current European retrospective, surveys her career from her student work of the early 70's through the ongoing series Great Men. Commentary by scholars and friends accompanies Dumas's own reflections and poems, and a detailed time line runs through the margins. Here, very personal developments are charted alongside world events-watershed moments in the art world and the apartheid state alike-lending the book an unexpected and great scrapbook intimacy.--Johanna Fateman "Bookforum "

One of the most provocative painters of the human form, the South African-born artist Marlene Dumas doesn't match the stereotype of artist as solitary genius. Her way is chaotic, more responsive and uncertain -- and that is her brilliance.

Perhaps the most celebrated living female painter of the human form, and certainly one of the most provocative contemporary artists, Dumas, in her public persona, doesn't seem given to doubt. She is known for her unflinching approach to sex and death; for portraits of sex workers, corpses and terrorists, among other subjects; for the washed texture of her often thinned paint; for the unloveliness of her palette.--Claire Messud "The New York Times: T Magazine "

The real beauty of Marlene Dumas' painting is in the physicality of human touch present in them, which cannot possibly be done justice on a screen, or on a page for that matter.--Country & Town House