postmedia

ALEX KATZ - I'm not that flat

ERIC FISCHL - I'm flatter than that
(But then he's an American in America and l'm a (South) African in Amsterdam. It's not an ex-cuse just an ex-planation.)

LUCIEN FREUD - I care less for the flesh

DAVID HOCKNEY - I care less for the fresh

(But then he saw the swimming pools and I see the sea.)

BALTHUS - He paints chairs and windows. I don't

ELIZABETH PEYTON - She paints nice people. I don't

BAS MEERMAN - His boys are bigger than mine ...

Let's move from the differences to the common ground.
No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it's not.
What a funny thing painting is. The abstract painters always insist on their connection with the visible reality, while the so called figurative artists (or at least I do) insist that what they really care about, is the abstract qualities of life.

Marlene Dumas, June 1999

"Figuration" was a group show touring in 1999-2000 at:

Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal (D)
Rupertinum, Salzburg (A)
Museion, Bolzano (I)