Collection Presentation II with Interventions by Joël Audebert, Nathalie Brevet & Hughes Rochette, Maria Roosen & Gert Robijns
Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community, image: © M HKA
It is the female nude, one of the canonical forms of Western art history, that occupies a central place in Marlene Dumas’ works. These watercolour paintings are based on Polaroid images Dumas made during a visit to a notorious Amsterdam strip club named Casa Rosso, as well as on photographs cut out of pornographic magazines. Displaying a sense of vulnerability that can come with sex work, Dumas adopts the ‘cheap tricks’ used to attract male attention – eyes looking at you, genitalia exposed or coyly covered.