In this video, we attend the opening of artist Marlene Dumas’ solo exhibition The Image as Burden at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen (Basel, Switzerland).

Marlene Dumas is regarded as one of the leading painters and artists of our time. Her work focuses mainly on the human figure and addresses topics such as love, death, identity and mourning. As reference and inspiration for her paintings, she draws on an extensive pictorial archive containing private Polaroid prints, media images, pictures from magazines, as well as film stills.

The exhibition The Image as Burden at Fondation Beyeler was planned and designed in close collaboration with Marlene Dumas and realized together with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Tate Modern London. The show provides a comprehensive overview of the artist’s oeuvre from the mid-1970s to the present. On display is a selection of over a hundred paintings and drawings, including several rarely shown collages from her early work and a few very recent paintings.

Marlene Dumas was born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa. She lives in Amsterdam. Marlene Dumas grew up in South Africa and studied at the University of Cape Town before leaving South Africa in 1976. In 1979 she had her first solo exhibition in a small gallery in Paris. Since then her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions. In 1992 she was invited to participate in Documenta IX in Kassel and in 1995 she featured prominently at the Venice Biennale. Over the last few years her work has been presented in major shows in Europe, the USA, Asia and Japan. Her works are also held in private collections and major art museums across the world, including the MoMA, New York, the Tate Modern, London, and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich.

The exhibition at Fondation Beyeler runs until 6th September 2015.

Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen (Switzerland). Vernissage, May 30, 2015.

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Photo set on Flickr: