Marlene Dumas Lindsay Anderson

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Marlene Dumas is a self-described image-magpie, who bases paintings on all kinds of pictures that she’s gathered over decades. An eagle-eyed reader in New York, seeing the Dumas painting adjacent reproduced with the Times review of her Museum of Contemporary Art retrospective, ‘Measuring Your Own Grave’ -- it’s the eponymous cover image on the show’s catalog -- nailed the source. It comes from Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 film, ‘if ... ,’ winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

The counterculture hit movie satirized British public school life and was notorious for its brutal scenes of savagery and insurrection -- themes that fit right in with the painter’s typical motifs. The figure in Dumas’ painting is bent over a railing in anticipation of a paddling. The show’s catalog does a good job of tracing many of Dumas’ photographic sources, but near as I can recall missed this one. You can see a related movie still from the scene by scrolling down here.

‘Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave’ closes at MOCA on Sept. 22, then travels to New York’s Museum of Modern Art (Dec. 14-Feb. 16) and the Menil Collection, Houston (Mar. 26-June 21).

--Christopher Knight

Marlene Dumas, ‘Measuring Your Own Grave’

2003

55 1/8 x 55 1/8 in.

private collection

© 2008 Marlene Dumas

Photo credit: Andy Keate