Marlene Dumas MAN KIND October 17 – November 25, 2006 With the title MAN KIND Marlene Dumas is showing a group of new paintings and drawings. These are painted portraits of men and one skull (of a woman). In her second exhibition at Paul Andriesse in 1985, Dumas also exhibited portraits under the title The Eyes of the Night Creatures. Those portraits were then described by her as ‘situations’ in the accompanying catalogue. Dumas painted her friends and, in double portraits, her lovers (e.g. ‘The Space Age’) as well as the spouse of Freud in ‘Martha – Sigmund’s Wife’ and herself in ‘Het kwaad is banaal’ (Evil is banal). In a review for the NRC Handelsblad, critic Betty van Garrel wrote at the time: “It seems as though Marlene Dumas wishes to unmask evil itself with her portraits and drive it from all its hiding places.” Now, roughly twenty years later, portraits have surfaced again in MAN KIND. The titles – ‘The Look-alike’, ‘The Neighbor’, ‘The Believer’ – refer to men with a Mediterranean appearance, most of them bearded. What that means in 2006 we know from the media, where the problematics of this image are heightened due to recent developments in world politics. Dumas specializes in allowing the viewer to experience his own prejudices and fears. The way in which people think they can determine each other’s identities and intentions interests her. This is not photography, but painting. The art of Dumas is based on the imaginary and made with gesture and with colors that speak to our subconscious. Her paintings enable us to imagine a world better than that in the media. Some of this work was shown in the exhibition RESPECT!, compiled by Roel Arkesteijn and held in Marrakesh in 2005. The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication MAN KIND, containing texts by Marlene Dumas and Paul Andriesse.

Exposerende kunstenaar(s) / exhibited artist(s): Marlene Dumas

Galerie Paul Andriesse Westerstraat 187, 1015 MA Amsterdam, 020-6236237, open: Tijdens tentoonstellingen:, di t/m vr 11.00-18.00, za 14.00-18.00, 1ste zondag van de maand 14.00-17.00 Expositieperiode van 17 oktober t/m 25 november 2006