Marlene Dumas ,1993
Provenance : Galerie Zeno X, Antwerp
Exhibited :
Literature : Dominic van den Boogerd, Barbara Bloom & Mariuccia Casadio, eds., Marlene Dumas, London, 2001, p. 65 (illustrated)
Notes : As a white South African, born and raised during the tumultuous apartheid years, Marlene Dumas has always been preoccupied in her work with questions of race and identity. The painting, Equality, is small in scale but executed with thick impastoed brushstrokes. It is a strong and poignant example of her haunting portraits, filled with multiple interpretations and meanings. Painted in 1993 along with two companion works titled Justice and Liberty, Equality represents the great virtue as embodied by a girl. However, unlike the numerous heroic representations of the virtues found throughout the history of art, there is nothing virtuous about this girl. Her skin colour and purpose are both highly ambiguous, forcing the viewer to contemplate an unnerving scene where more questions are asked than answered. Perhaps this is the aftermath of a murder in which a young black girl donned a white mask in order to infiltrate white society and exact a form of revenge. Beyond the title and subject matter, the work's date of execution, 1993, makes it clear that Dumas was exploring political ideologies. In the following year, South Africa held its first democratic elections and elected a black president. As one of the finest examples of Dumas' work, Equality presents the viewer with a certain unabashed psychological disparity between the real and the imaginary where morality, representation and social convention are questioned.
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