Dimensions: support: 2004 x 1002 x 27 mm
Copyright: © Marlene Dumas | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Let's consider "Lead White" by Marlene Dumas, currently residing in the Tate Collections. I’m struck by its imposing scale. Editor: It's ghostlike, isn't it? Like a memory fading into the canvas. There's a vulnerability, almost a discomfort, radiating from the figure. Curator: Dumas often confronts complex social issues in her work, especially those related to sexuality and representation. The title, "Lead White," is interesting given the historical uses of the pigment in cosmetics and the related health risks. Editor: It’s as if the whiteness itself becomes a commentary, a kind of mask both revealing and obscuring. Makes me wonder about the pressure of idealized beauty standards. Curator: Absolutely. The image challenges traditional representations of the female nude. Editor: The ambiguity is powerful. Curator: Indeed. It's a work that keeps asking questions, even as it seems to offer answers. Editor: And that haunting presence stays with you long after you've moved on.
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Lead White and the related painting Ivory Black explore the representation of race and gender. The paradoxical titles of the two works are both taken from the names of oil paints, implying that the division between black and white is not as clear as the proponents of apartheid believed. Lead White is a self-portrait, based on an image of the artist’s own body. The figure strikes an exuberant, exhibitionist pose, but her body is at the same time deliberately unglamourised, awkward and self-conscious, challenging traditional ideas about the representation of the nude Gallery label, March 2008
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