Guided tour of the “Open-End” exhibition

The Pinault Collection hosts a monographic exhibition held in Palazzo Grassi, dedicated to Marlene Dumas, one of most important painters of the contemporary art scene. The exhibition, titled Open-End, is curated by Caroline Bourgeois in collaboration with the artist and presents over 100 works from a selection of paintings and drawings dated from 1984 to the present. Dumas’ work largely focuses on human faces and figures that often take up the entire pictorial surface, imposing themselves on the viewer with a provocatory, seductive presence charged with eroticism. The artist’s expressionist pictorial language engages with controversial themes related to race, sexuality, death and violence. The images she draws inspiration from come from newspapers, magazines, film stills, or Polaroid pictures that she has taken, which are then re-elaborated and injected with new life. Dumas transforms these borrowed visual references into engaging depictions of a lonely and isolated humanity, which emerge as expressions of an unsettling beauty.

INFO

• For Guggenheim members only
• First slot: 10:30–11:30 am / Second slot: 12 noon–1 pm
• Participation requires a donation of 25€ (20€ for Young Pass members)
• Subject to availability

Marlene Dumas, Losing (Her Meaning), 1988, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm. Credits collection: Pinault Collection. Paris, France. Copyright work and courtesy image: Marlene Dumas. Credits photography: Peter Cox, Eindhoven