Exotic Lingerie
Marlene Dumas
(South Africa)
1983 – acrylic paint on canvas
The diptych Exotic Lingerie is one of Dumas’ first paintings. The work on paper In jou mond, mijn naam served as a sketch design. Exotic Lingerie features a row of images – like sex adverts – of naked women in provocative poses. Beneath the images are columns of names of porn industry artistes. To the left is the Barbie-like profile of ‘the’ ideal woman, and on the right is an aggressive head of a woman baring her teeth in a grimace.
Marja Bosma − curator of modern art
Collection Centraal Museum, Utrecht/ loan from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands 1987
Marlene Dumas’s Exotic Lingerie is one of the works from the Centraal Museum collection, in dialogue with the artists from the Modern Love festival exhibition.