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Marlene Dumas has recently completed the altarpiece for the Annenkirche in Dresden, and to honour the artist’s commitment to the city, the Dresden State Art Collections are organising two exhibitions, in the Albertinum and in the Kupferstich-Kabinett. Dumas, born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953, has been living and working in Amsterdam for over 40 years and is among the most significant artists of today. In her drawings and paintings, she transforms the existential experiences of human life, such as love, death, power and powerlessness into vivid pictures. These are based on photographs. Dumas thus does not depict people but images of people. Her main interest is the portrait, a central theme in both exhibitions.

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The Kupferstich-Kabinett is presenting three watercolor series by Marlene Dumas, which are particularly significant for her oeuvre. The drawings of heads assume positions between portrait-like and ideal images, offenders and victims, belonging and exclusion. The extremes of human existence depicted by Dumas suggest ambiguous readings. The artist thus exposes the arbitrary nature of categories and conven­tions as tools of discrimination, traceable to her own expe­riences growing up during apartheid in South Africa. “Hope and Fear” runs parallel to the exhibition “Käthe Kollwitz in Dresden,” allowing visitors of the Kupferstich-Kabinett to discover commonalities between the two otherwise unrelated artists.

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The Albertinum presents "Marlene Dumas. Skulls" parallel to this exhibition.

Marlene Dumas. Skulls.