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Castellano abajo.

Dear Marlene Dumas,

I’ve visited your exhibition in Tate Modern several times during the last few months and I don’t feel tired of looking for new details in your artworks. It’s not only the way you paint, that is incredibly powerful and disturbing. It´s your social and critic subjects that motivated me to write these words to you. I’d like to say thank you for the good you do to others. For stirring people’s consciences in a way so visceral and magic. I want to thank you for reading a lot, investigating stories that are real, raw, human, and showing them after passing through your hands. Through the filter of your enlightening vision.

Today I was focusing on the series you did for Manifesta 10 in demonstration for the Russian anti-gay legislation. I didn’t know Manifesta 10 was in Russia and because of that, today, I found this series twice as good. “Great Men”: 16 portraits of men who had been prosecuted, in one way or another, for being homosexual. Every face is a story.

Thank you for making me remember Federico García Lorca and his unfair death; for introducing me to Leonard Maltovich and his moving quote: “When I was in the army, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.” Thanks for the Francis Bacon portrait, Tennesse Williams, Orcar Wilde… For these 16 faces that deserve to be recorded. Thank you for your faith, believing still there are ways to change the world. And for being a feminist. Thank you very much also for that.

Olga

Castellano

Querida Marlene Dumas,

Llevo unos meses paseando por tu exposición en Tate Modern y no me canso de rebuscar nuevos detalles en tu obra.

No se trata solamente de tu forma de pintar, que es increíblemente potente y perturbadora. Son tus temáticas sociales y críticas las que me han motivado para escribirte estas líneas. Me gustaría darte las gracias por el bien que haces. Por mover conciencias de una manera tan visceral y mágica. Quiero darte las gracias por leer tanto, por investigar historias humanas, reales y crudas y mostrárnoslas después de que pasen por tus manos. Por el filtro de tu visión esclarecedora.

Hoy estuve escudriñando la serie que hiciste para Manifesta 10 en protesta por la legislación anti-gay rusa. No sabía que Manifesta 10 fue en Rusia y por eso hoy, esa serie me pareció doblemente buena. “Great Men” 16 retratos de hombres que fueron perseguidos de una manera u otra por ser homosexuales. Cada cara es una historia.

Gracias por recordarme a Federico García Lorca y su injusta muerte; por presentarme a Leonard Maltovich y su emocionante frase: ““When I was in the army, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.” Gracias por el retrato de Bacon, de Tennesse Williams, de Oscar Wilde… por esas 16 caras que merecen ser recordadas. Gracias por tener fe en que todavía hay formas de cambiar el mundo. Y por ser feminista. Muchas gracias también por eso.

Olga