Marlene Dumas, Liasons @ Porte des Lions au Louvre

Marlene Dumas, Liaisons, 
Installation, Louvre

On the wall at the entrance to the Porte des Lions on the west side of the Louvre, Marlene Dumas's nine mask-like faces bid goodbye to those exiting the Italian and Spanish painting halls. Each face is different, wears a different expression, is painted in a different colour, and has a varied resemblance to a mask. The faces are too distant for the visitor to engage with them as they can only be seen from the stairs leading up to Spanish painting, or from below. Thus, while  their appearance as one exits the Porte des Lions is bold and arresting, it is difficult to focus on any one out of the nine.

Marlene Dumas, Alpha's Light, 2025

Each face or mask fills its frame, as if replicating a cropped photograph, and typical of Dumas's faces, all identity is removed. The faces have no gender, sex, colour or identity. Rather, they are yellow and blue and green and orange, black and brown. Some are obviously masks, such as that on the right in the middle, or the blue one above it which looks like a horror movie mask, without a living being behind it. Others such as the blue on the top left is visibly traumatized with its distorted mouth and eyes rolling upwards. One way to approach them is to see each expressing an emotion: the pale blue in agony, yellow on bottom left could be a lightness, the black is alarmed, the orange on the right, suspicious and so on. 

Marlene Dumas, Red Rust, 2025

Liasons is also a comment on the history of the Louvre and, the inevitable traumatization that comes with colonization of cultures and identities. It is no secret that the Louvre is a magnificent collection filled with pilfered and misappropriated works. As the final stop on a tour through the history of Western European art, as its title suggests, Liasons comments on the connections, the coming together of styles and mutual influence over centuries. It sits in a gallery named Galerie des Cinq Continents, it creates a dialogue between five continents, specifically, creating connections between works from Africa, Asia, The Americas, Europe and Oceania. And given Dumas's not always joyful masks, all of the suggested emotions are on display from around the world.

Marlene Dumas, Bronze Moss, 2025

The faces can also be ominous and unsettling - they are not all celebration. Similarly, the mask-like appearance is unsettling: we are immediately prompted to ask what is lurking underneath the surface, like all of the hidden stories and meanings of art in the Louvre. Dumas says in interview that there is also a relationship to the sculptures in the Louvre's collection - and mentions Michelangelo's Dying Slave. Such sculptures are emotions in motion, whereas Dumas's paintings are very much emotions frozen behind masks. We are left to wonder what caused the emotions of faces with little agency on a wall at the exit.