Marlene Dumas has long been drawn to Greek myth; ‘Mourning Marsyas’, one of her most recent exhibitions, took its name from an arresting work in which she depicts the satyr Marsyas, flayed by Apollo and hanging from a branch. So it’s fitting that this survey of the South African artist’s work from the last two decades is at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens (5 June–2 November). Dumas has selected many of the works herself and is displaying them alongside objects from the museum’s archaeological collection. It’s a fascinating opportunity to see how her eerie abstractions of the human body, which rarely fail to get under the skin, compare with figures sculpted some 5,000 years ago.
Find out more from the Museum of Cycladic Art’s website.
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Cycladic Blues (2020), Marlene Dumas. Photo: Peter Cox, courtesy Studio Dumas; courtesy Marlene Dumas and Frith Street Gallery; © Marlene Dumas
Give me the Head of John the Baptist (1992; detail), Marlene Dumas. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Helga de Alvear, Cáceres. Photo: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Helga de Alvear; © Marlene Dumas
Alfa (2004), Marlene Dumas. Private collection. Courtesy Frith Street Gallery; © Marlene Dumas
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