New Artist Monographs - Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans

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I've been reading two new artist monographs on arguably two of the best 

contemporary painters around:

"Measuring Your Own Grave" (ISBN 1933751088) on Marlene Dumas, and

"Luc Tuymans" (ISBN 1933045981) on, obviously, Luc Tuymans.

Both are published on the occasion of major exhibitions of these artists: Tuymans 

at the Wexner Center for the Arts (at Ohio State University) - still on, and at San 

Francisco Museum of Modern Art and four other venues during this year.  Marlene 

Dumas midcareer exhibition was at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art 

and at Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Both publications are excellent with great reproductions, highly recommended.

Also recommended are the 16 short MoMA audio podcasts on the Dumas 

exhibition, and the individual works.

Measuring Your Own Grave

I am the woman who does not know

where she wants to be buried anymore.

When I was small, I wanted a big angel on my grave

with wings like in a Caravaggio painting.

Later I found that too pompous.

So I thought I'd rather have a cross.

Then I thought - a tree

I am the woman who does not know

if I want to be buried anymore.

If no one goes to graveyards anymore

if you won't visit me there no more

I might as well have my ashes in a jam jar

and be more mobile.

But let's get back to my exhibition here.

I've been told that people want to know,

why such a somber title for a show?

Is it about artists and their mid-life careers,

or is it about women's after-50 fears?

No, let me make this clear:

It is the best definition I can find

for what an artist does when making art

and how a figure in a painting makes its mark.

For the type of portraitist like me

this is as wide as I can see.

Marlene Dumas, Amsterdam, 2008

Marlene Dumas

Measuring Your Own Grave, 2003

Oil on canvas, 55 1/8 x 55 1/8 inches

Luc Tuymans

Parachutisten (Paratroopers), 1998

Oil on canvas, 24 x 19 5/8 inches (61 x 50 cm)

Both Tuymans and Dumas were influenced by the Belgian artist Raoul De Keyser 

(b.1930):

Raoul De Keyser
Trio in Red, 2006
Acrylic on canvas, 68 x 100 cm