Kissing the Toad: Marlene Dumas and Autobiography Author Fragar, Julie Published 2013 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School Queensland College of Art DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/407 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367588 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au KISSING THE TOAD: Marlene Dumas and Autobiography Julie Fragar MFA Queensland College of Art Griffith University Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. March 2013 i ABSTRACT The work of South African born painter Marlene Dumas has frequently been described as “intimate”, “conversational” and filled with “desire”. Though her work is fiercely material and painterly, and though the majority of her subjects derive from universal mass-media images or art history, a preoccupation with Dumas’ biographical self persists in most interpretations of her work. This thesis considers why this is so. I assert that Dumas’ work engages in a highly self-reflexive mode of authorial presence that is marked by a reference to its own artificiality or contrivance. I argue that, while understandable, simplistic biographical or intentional readings of Dumas’ work are unhelpful, and that Dumas’ authorial presence, more interestingly, questions the nature of authentic communication through art. This argument also suggests that the visual arts require a more nuanced understanding of the authorial self in art than has been evident to date. To demonstrate better critical engagement with the author, I refer to theories from contemporary autobiographical studies that provide a rich language of authorial presence. The visual arts have had an uneasy relationship with the author since the twentieth century, when political, academic and critical shifts lost the Romantic belief in the author as god of the work of art. Having done so, the visual arts have sought to either dispel or politicize the author’s presence in a work of art. These approaches to the author, however, fail to acknowledge what Michel Foucault calls ‘the author function’; a concept of authorship that recognises the specificity of an author while maintaining a critical stance and avoiding historical traps of intentionality. This approach to authorship is the basis for contemporary autobiographical studies, which require a specific author for the definition of the genre, but also acknowledge the fluid nature of human subjectivity and the opacity of language. Consequently, autobiographical studies provide insightful thematic and structural means by which to address the role of the author in Dumas’ work, a connection that has not previously been made. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This thesis, entitled ‘Kissing The Toad: Marlene Dumas and Autobiography’, has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. (Signed)_____________________________ Julie Fragar 28 February 2013 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Griffith University for the opportunity to undertake this research and for the financial support that made it possible. I would also like to thank the following people. My theory supervisor Dr. Rosemary Hawker whose patience, clear mindedness and wisdom I am eternally grateful for. Jennifer Watson whose professional and existential advice, have been invaluable. Professor Ross Woodrow for his considerate assistance in the penultimate stages of completion. My immediate family Penelope Kent, Hugo Kent, Sam Kent, Susan Fragar, Timothy Fragar, Annette Kent and Charles Kent who put up with a great deal of inconvenience. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................ i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ..................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ................................................................................................................ v PREFACE .......................................................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER ONE No, They’re Not All Self-Portraits: Critical Approaches to Dumas’ Work ................... 25 CHAPTER TWO A Background to Autobiographical Studies: The Problem and Fantasy ..................... 46 CHAPTER THREE Dumas and Autobiography: Connections between Dumas’ Self-Reflexivity and Autobiographic Theory ................................................................................................................ 54 CHAPTER FOUR Don’t Talk to Strangers: Dialogue and the Field ................................................................. 76 CHAPTER FIVE Drunk: The Delinquent Self-Portraitist and the Female Nude ....................................... 82 CHAPTER SIX Pregnant Image: Split Subjectivity and the Reading of Skins ......................................... 92 CHAPTER SEVEN Likeness of Deadness: The Role of the Undertaker ........................................................ 101 FIGURES .......................................................................................................................................... 115 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 129 APPENDIX Artist's Statement and Documentation of Studio Research ........................................ 138 iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1, Marlene Dumas, The Over-Rated Artist (The Artist Is), 1987, 8 of 20, mixed media on paper, 32 x 25cm. ................................................................................. 14 Figure 2 Dumas, Give the People What They Want, 1992, oil on canvas, 40 x 30cm. .. 28 Figure 3 Dumas, Identity, M Dumas and M Oblowitz (date unknown), published as part of “The Michaelis School of Fine Art (1970s)”, in Intimate Relations, no page number. ............................................................................................................... 32 Figure 4 Dumas, Evil is Banal, 1984 (from the series Eyes of the Night Creatures), oil on canvas, 125 x 105cm. ..................................................................................... 34 Figure 5 Dumas, Archetype Baby Versus Prototype Baby, 1989, watercolour, crayon, and collage on paper, 49.9 x 65.2cm.. .................................................................. 35 Figure 6 Dumas, Imaginary 2, 2002, oil on canvas, 125 x 70cm. ................................. 37 Figure 7 Photograph of Marlene Dumas, inscribed on the back, “This is dedicated to my mother with whom I bought Vogue magazines in South Africa when I was a child.” 1997, published in Measuring Your Own Grave, 255. .............................. 54 Figure 8 Dumas, Snow White and the Broken Arm, 1988, oil on canvas, 140 x 300cm. 58 Figure 9 Dumas, Self-Portrait at Noon, 2008, oil on canvas, 90 x 100cm. ................... 61 Figure 10 Marlene Dumas winning the Johannes Vermeer award 2012. ...................... 64 Figure 11 Dumas, Dorothy D-Lite, 1998, ink and acrylic on paper, 125 x 70cm. ......... 69 Figure 12 Dumas, Don’t Talk to Strangers, 1977, oil, collage pencil and Sellotape on canvas, 125 x 156cm. .......................................................................................... 76 Figure 13 Dumas, Drunk, 1997, oil on canvas, 200 x 100cm. ...................................... 82 Figure 14 Dumas, Several works from the Magdalena series, 1995, oil on canvas, various dimensions, work in progress in the artist’s studio. Published in Marlene Dumas (London: Phaidon, 1999), 131. ................................................................ 86 Figure 15 El Greco, Mary Magdalene in Penitence, c.1577, oil on canvas, 157 x 121cm. ............................................................................................................................ 87 Figure 16 Dumas, Magdalena (Newman's Zip), 1995, oil on canvas, 300 x 105cm. ..... 91 Figure 17 Dumas, Pregnant Image, 1998–90, oil on canvas, 180 x 90cm. ................... 92 Figure 18 René Magritte, The Rape, 1934, oil on canvas, 73.3 x 54.6cm. .................... 95 Figure 19 Dumas, Warhol’s Child, 1989–91, oil on canvas, 140 x 300cm. .................. 98 Figure 20 Dumas, Gelijkenis 1 en 2 (Likeness 1 and 2) 2002, oil on canvas, diptych, each panel 60 x 230cm. ..................................................................................... 101 Figure 21 Jacques Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793, oil on canvas, 162 x 128cm. .......................................................................................................................... 102 Figure 22 Dumas, Jen, 2005, oil on canvas, 110 x 130cm. ........................................ 103 Figure 23 Hans Holbein the Younger, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1521, oil on limewood, 30.2 x 200cm. ........................................................................ 105 Figure