WITCH OF THE DAY: Marlene Dumas

December 8, 2009

At the Centre Pompidou ELLES exhibit, I came across a poem by the absolutely ferocious South African painter Marlene Dumas. But before we get to read her poem  – look at that photo of her. Fantastic. She is a force of fearlessness. And a mistress of technique.

Marlene Dumas, whose broom is a brush. And vice versa.

She is also close to my heart because her work deals mostly with liminality – portraits of people in the borderlands of life and death. Illness portraits, birth portraits, funerary portraits.

Not only am I enamored with her gutsy sentiments about my favorite topics of birth, death, sex and violence, I also have fallen in love with her work, of which there was just a smidgen in the cataclysmically-amazing Pompidou show (comprised of all the women artists’ work housed in their permanent collection).

I made it in to worship at the shrine a few days before the strike closed down the museum (which saved me the trouble of reconciling two competing principles (the compulsion to see the show, and the solidarity with unions), which would have doubtless ended with me being a scab, breaking in, being arrested, etcetera.)

That arrest would have added a grim foreshadowing (or aft-shadowing? when something only appears ominous from the future looking back?) to the memory of the beloved cover of my 9th grade French textbook, which featured the joyous color-cacophany of Pompidou’s pipes and tubes.

Oh, how I would scry into its ratty cardboard face…

But let’s enjoy the work of today’s witch:

Laboring under the impression that we are currently experiencing the year 2008, I was busy planning a trip to NYC to see her exhibit at the MOMA. It’s taken a while to console myself that I’m a year too late. But there is a marvelous lecture by her on their website:  MEASURING YOUR OWN GRAVE show at the MOMA last winter. Since the show was first curated by Cornelia Butler at the MOCA here in LA, that means I missed it twice. What a moron.

The title is entrancing: measuring your own grave.

As she says about the name of the show: It’s not as depressing as it sounds.

I got no problem with it. Since each of us will eventually die, and some of us will have a grave, wouldn’t one want it to fit?

Exactly.

Her series of women in birthing positions are quite simply beyond my brain’s often-paltry comprehension, and must be absorbed slowly, in titration. Or soaked in, like a bath…to absorb everything, and let the nourishment soak in.

But what initially called to me was her poem.

Here is her poem:

I paint because I am an old-fashioned woman.
(I believe in witchcraft.)
I don’t have Freudian hang-ups.
A brush does not remind
me of a phallic symbol. If anything, the domestic aspect of
a painter’s studio (being ‘locked up’ in a room) reminds me
a bit of the housewife with her broom. If you’re a a witch you
will still know to use it. Otherwise it is obvious that
you’ll prefer the vacuum cleaner.

[ from Marlene Dumas, “Women and Painting,” Parkett, no. 37, 1993. Reprinted in Marlene Dumas, Sweet Nothings: notes and texts, Mariska van den Berg (ed.). (Amsterdam: Galerie Paul Andriesse, Uitgeverij De Balie, 1998), pp. 74-75 ]

It reminds me of that old FUCK HOUSEWORK diatribe I undertook so very merrily at Ragdale.

I think Dumas’ poem  is a glorious call to brooms and brushes for us all.

She is a testimony to the power of witchcraft: what profound alchemy is happening in her work. I mean, MFA in art is fantastic. Years of training. Self-discipline. But come on, sometimes there’s a little more at play with some folks. Admit it.

There have been so many conversations recently between me and other people, where I call someone a witch and intend it as a lavish complement, and they reel back in fear and horror.

Come now. Surely we can move beyond this, as thousands of albinos are murdered in Africa as accused witches and over the coffee tables of bourgeoise bohemians we do little better with our measly small-minded attitudes.

Take charge of worlds unseen! Isn’t that part of what art’s about? Seeing worlds unseen?  Unseen worlds being seen?

Of course, this is all spoken from someone who was a witch every year for Halloween for about eight years straight…well, make that 36: it’s unsurprising that I fail to see the problem with a witch being a fine thing and a good thing. Anyone can cause damage – you don’t have to be a witch to do that. Hell, look at Catholic priests.

But back to Marlene Dumas.

The gift of prophecy? Flying? Access to esoteric truths? The intrepid exploration of taboo? That’s all well and good, but Dumas knows how to use a broom!

And with that, back to my anti-stigma campaign: It’s time to bring back curiosity, humility and grace to the cultural understanding of witches. Time to put down our silly little boogeys and totems and fearfulness and stop being so cops-and-robbers reactionary about witches being something bad. Poo. Go fly a cat, for goodness sake.

Or just stare into a Dumas painting!

These paintings are so deeply human – standing in front of them is a rare honor and delight.

In her honor, I hereby install a new section of the blog: WITCH OF THE DAY. For women who fulfill the highest aims and ambitions of that moniker. Hold on to your coffeetable, and put down that cuppa Illy espresso. Let’s rock this broom.