Forsaken: Marlene Dumas

On Friday I saw Marlene Dumas' latest exhibition at the Firth Street Gallery. Forsaken is Dumas’ first solo show in the UK since 2004 and includes works range from The Crucifixion to images of famous as well as infamous contemporary figures.
Dumas writes:

"This is an exhibition that takes the words of Christ on the cross as its starting point. The moment of feeling utterly and absolutely alone, when he cries out – “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
It is not an exhibition only about the dilemmas of Christianity,
but also about the loss of love and beliefs that we have forsaken.
It is about tragic lives and falls from grace.
It is about portraits betraying states of mind.
About people becoming ghosts of themselves."

Her previous exhibition at the Firth Street Gallery also drew on religious themes. She wrote at the time:

"I’m calling this show ‘The Second Coming’. Perhaps it sounds insincere. Does anybody who knows the Bible really still believe the Messiah will actually come down to earth (again)? Yet, I do, more than often work with religious connotations. Remember my ‘(In search of) the perfect lover’? Yes it also has sexual connotations (another common element of most of my work.) Remember my MD-light? If these attempts towards pleasure made way for anxiety and fear in my shows Time and Again (2002) and Suspect (Venice 2003) I could not let it end this way. I had to rise up and come again and insist that whatever life is about, you can’t make art if you’re dead."

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