Marlene Dumas: Cycladic Blues at the Cycladic
Roma Publications/Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
A publication bringing Marlene Dumas’s paintings and drawings into dialogue with ancient Cycladic figurines and artefacts across time.
Cycladic Blues at the Cycladic is a publication by South African-born artist Marlene Dumas, issued on the occasion of the exhibition Marlene Dumas: Cycladic Blues at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. By placing more than 40 paintings and drawings by Dumas alongside over 30 ancient artefacts from the museum’s collection, the project stages a transhistorical dialogue between contemporary works and Cycladic figurines made thousands of years ago by unknown hands.
Organised through categories such as “family portraits,” “erotic figures,” “fragmented bodies,” and “portraits of sculpture,” the selection suggests a series of universal narratives. The publication includes texts by exhibition curator Douglas Fogle and by Dumas herself.
“This is a book for all times. About being born, youth, beauty and seduction, betrayal and attack, growing old, and trying not to die.”
— Marlene Dumas
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Title: Cycladic Blues at the Cycladic
Artist: Marlene Dumas
Publisher: Roma Publications / Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, 2025
Design: Roger Willems
Format: Softcover
Size: 210 × 300 mm
Pages: 144
Language: English
Edition: First edition
ISBN: 9789464460803