📍 Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
⏳ Until November 2, 2025
South African-born, Amsterdam-based artist Marlene Dumas makes her debut solo museum exhibition in Greece at the Museum of Cycladic Art. Cycladic Blues juxtaposes Dumas’ body-centric work with a curated selection of archaeological artifacts spanning from the Neolithic to the Classical period.
Organized in collaboration with independent curator Douglas Fogle, the exhibition features over forty paintings and works on paper spanning more than three decades of Dumas’ career. Highlights include two monumental paintings created specifically for this exhibition: Old (2025) and Phantom Age (2025).
Throughout her career, Dumas has explored profound human conditions such as violence, grief, melancholy, joy, and compassion through the lens of the body. Her works, exhibited at leading institutions like Tate Modern, Musée d’Orsay, and MoMA, continually redefine the boundaries of figuration.
In this Athens exhibition, Dumas’ works are presented alongside fourteen archaeological artifacts handpicked by the artist: from schematic figures of the Late Neolithic to marble icons of the Cycladic Bronze Age and sculptures from Cyprus and the Aegean from the Classical period. This creates a dialogue where universal themes like life, love, motherhood, gender, and mortality resonate between contemporary painting and ancient art.
This unique encounter offers a timeless yet contemporary experience, reminding us that the past and present can coexist in a single breath.
