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拍品專文
'Keep out of reach of children.
Art is not meant for children.
Like poison and medicine
it should be kept out of reach' (Dumas, quoted in D. van den Boogerd, B. Bloom & M. Casadio, Marlene Dumas, London, 1999, p. 125).
Executed between 1988 and 1991, The Show Must Go On marks the potent confluence of all the key themes of Marlene Dumas' controversial art: gender, race, sex and the nature of art itself. The image, like the face that is its most important element, confronts the viewer unmercifully. This is the face of a child, and in the challenge in his face we see the challenge of Dumas the artist. This child, presented as though touching himself, relates to Dumas' pictures of pornographic subjects. Yet, like Warhol in his ultra-violet works and the film Blow Job, Dumas shows nothing explicit in The Show Must Go On - the sin, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
As a South African, race has often appeared as a theme in Dumas' art, having been almost taboo in the apartheid nation of her youth. The presence of black subjects in her work was a political statement (it was only in 1994 that the black population received the vote) and a personal statement of inclusion and invitation. But most importantly it was a challenge to the preconceptions, racial or otherwise, of the viewer.
That she has chosen a young male subject for The Show Must Go On adds another layer to the challenge inherent in it: Titian, Velazquez, Goya and Manet showed us paintings of beautiful women, sometimes touching themselves suggestively. In her disruption of this classic theme, Dumas questions the authority of the male gaze, presenting us with a deliberately sordid picture. She teeters on the brink of taboo in order to highlight the voyeurism so central to the canonical images of naked women. And this introduction of taboo means that it is the viewer's stomach as well as mind that reacts. Dumas is not a conceptual artist - the reactions she seeks are emotional as well as mental, as is the process of artistic creation itself: 'I deal with second-hand images and first-hand experiences' (Dumas, quoted in D. van den Boogerd, 'Survey: Hang-ups and Hangovers in the Work of Marlene Dumas,' pp. 32-85, Dumas, quoted in van den Boogerd et al., op.cit., 1999, p. 45).
Reacting to the assertion that her art is voyeuristic, Dumas said, 'I'm not a Peeping Tom, I'm a painter; I'm not even a photographer... The aim is to 'reveal', not to 'display'. It is the discourse of the Lover. I am intimately involved with my subject matter' (Dumas, quoted in van den Boogerd et al., op.cit., 1999, p. 122). Her art, like the child in The Show Must Go On, is an open challenge to the tradition of the Peeping-Tom artist, and the Peeping Tom viewer.
Art is not meant for children.
Like poison and medicine
it should be kept out of reach' (Dumas, quoted in D. van den Boogerd, B. Bloom & M. Casadio, Marlene Dumas, London, 1999, p. 125).
Executed between 1988 and 1991, The Show Must Go On marks the potent confluence of all the key themes of Marlene Dumas' controversial art: gender, race, sex and the nature of art itself. The image, like the face that is its most important element, confronts the viewer unmercifully. This is the face of a child, and in the challenge in his face we see the challenge of Dumas the artist. This child, presented as though touching himself, relates to Dumas' pictures of pornographic subjects. Yet, like Warhol in his ultra-violet works and the film Blow Job, Dumas shows nothing explicit in The Show Must Go On - the sin, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
As a South African, race has often appeared as a theme in Dumas' art, having been almost taboo in the apartheid nation of her youth. The presence of black subjects in her work was a political statement (it was only in 1994 that the black population received the vote) and a personal statement of inclusion and invitation. But most importantly it was a challenge to the preconceptions, racial or otherwise, of the viewer.
That she has chosen a young male subject for The Show Must Go On adds another layer to the challenge inherent in it: Titian, Velazquez, Goya and Manet showed us paintings of beautiful women, sometimes touching themselves suggestively. In her disruption of this classic theme, Dumas questions the authority of the male gaze, presenting us with a deliberately sordid picture. She teeters on the brink of taboo in order to highlight the voyeurism so central to the canonical images of naked women. And this introduction of taboo means that it is the viewer's stomach as well as mind that reacts. Dumas is not a conceptual artist - the reactions she seeks are emotional as well as mental, as is the process of artistic creation itself: 'I deal with second-hand images and first-hand experiences' (Dumas, quoted in D. van den Boogerd, 'Survey: Hang-ups and Hangovers in the Work of Marlene Dumas,' pp. 32-85, Dumas, quoted in van den Boogerd et al., op.cit., 1999, p. 45).
Reacting to the assertion that her art is voyeuristic, Dumas said, 'I'm not a Peeping Tom, I'm a painter; I'm not even a photographer... The aim is to 'reveal', not to 'display'. It is the discourse of the Lover. I am intimately involved with my subject matter' (Dumas, quoted in van den Boogerd et al., op.cit., 1999, p. 122). Her art, like the child in The Show Must Go On, is an open challenge to the tradition of the Peeping-Tom artist, and the Peeping Tom viewer.