Marlene Dumas

Originally published in 2010 on the occasion of Against the Wall, Dumass first solo presentation at David Zwirner in New York, this much sought-after exhibition catalogue which sold out shortly after publication has been reprinted in 2014 to coincide with the artists European retrospective exhibition The Image as Burden, organized by Tate Modern, London, in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Fondation Beyeler, Basel, traveling through 2015. The large-scale works included in Against the Wall are primarily based on media imagery and newspaper clippings documenting Israel and Palestine, exploring the tension between the photographic documentation of reality and the constructed, imaginary space of painting. The sombre colour plates reproduced in the publication are given context by Dumass own musings, a text framed as a letter to David Zwirner in which she tries to tell him about the why of this powerful series.