See All This #42 – The Body

Launch speech by Nicole Ex

Article

June 2026

At the launch of See All This #42 – The Body on 18 June 2026, Nicole Ex spoke about watercolour, war, beauty, print, and the body as a site of truth. Below, we share her speech, delivered at Café Fonda in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

MOMA

In 2006, I was standing in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in front of Marlene Dumas’s Models (1994).

I had known her work for years, but only then did I fully grasp how radically she had opened up the medium of watercolour.

Watercolour had long belonged to the world of charming landscapes, hydrangeas and delicate flowers. But in her hands, diluted colour could turn violent, and pastel tones could become seductive. Her watercolours seemed to overturn every rule the medium had once obeyed.

She emancipated watercolour, using it as a vehicle for power, politics, war, sex, birth and death. That is perhaps why, when we started thinking about this issue, only one artist came to mind.

THE INVITATION

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote to Marlene.

‘Today, I am writing to you with a wish I have carried for a long time: we would love to invite you to be the guest curator of our Summer Issue 2026, dedicated to The Body – that profoundly intelligent, sensual, life-giving, wise, ageing and political body.’

Her answer was both a no and the beginning of a conversation: ‘I would very much like to say yes, but I suffer from a chronic lack of time.’ And: ‘To be honest, I’m saying no, but I’m not entirely sure…’

Then she continued: ‘If I would collaborate with the magazine I would like to address war, and therefore See All This is too elegant a magazine.’

TRY ME

Should we become more radical, more activist? Maybe she had a point. But I also felt that beauty and darkness do not have to exclude one another. That beauty can carry difficult truths. That beauty can help us look longer, look deeper, and stay with things we might otherwise turn away from.

So I wrote back:
War.
Try me.
On one condition.
If we bring the darkness, we also bring the light.

And somehow, from that exchange, this issue began.

Fig 1. Launch See All This #42, Café Fonda, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam | photo: Katerina Bezedei

MEETING MARLENE

When I finally met Marlene in person, the first thing I noticed were her eyes. Young, attentive eyes, with a joyful sense of humour. One of Dumas’s painted eyes now gazes out from the cover of this issue.

Marlene did not want a portrait of herself on the cover. She did not want an interview as the opening of the magazine. She had no interest in performing the world-famous ‘Marlene Dumas’.

Instead, she almost casually laid out the cover herself.

And it was Marlene who suggested that extraordinary quote by Steve McQueen, in which he describes the eye as something that turns the inside out, almost like a wound. It felt immediately right. Like the perfect threshold for this issue.

THE BODY

Looking back, it feels inevitable that eyes became a recurring thread throughout these pages: watching, witnessing, grieving – much like the rest of the body.

The seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza wrote that the body is far more intelligent than we know. Centuries later, the neurologist Antonio Damasio returned to that insight, arguing that thought itself is inseparable from feeling, sensation and the emotional intelligence of the body. We do not think separately from the body, but through it.

William Forsythe’s interview carries the title The Body Never Lied to Me. It is a sentence that stayed with me throughout the making of this issue. Because in a world full of noise, opinions, algorithms and performance, the body often knows the truth before the mind catches up.

Dumas’ paintings seem to understand this instinctively. Her bodies are never simply depicted; they think and feel. They blush, dissolve and desire.

It has been an honour to collaborate closely with Marlene. This issue grew from that source.

AMBITION NEEDS HELPERS

Marlene is not here today. Not because she does not want to be, but simply because she cannot. And that is perfectly fine. She has already been so deeply involved in this issue.

A few weeks ago, during a press meeting with William Forsythe at Voorlinden in Wassenaar, he said something that stayed with me: ‘Ambition needs helpers.’ People who quietly make things possible. People who hold the space around the work. Rudolf Evenhuis is one of those people.

For years, he has helped create the conditions in which Marlene’s work can travel through the world. Calmly. Generously. Mostly behind the scenes. Which is why it gives me enormous pleasure to hand the very first copy of The Body to Rudolf.

Fig 2. Writer Jessica Collins | photo: Katerina Bezedei

Fig 3. Bram Broerse en Maurits Wouters (Studio Airport), Rudolf Evenhuis (Studio Dumas)

INSIDE THE ISSUE

What is in the inside? Marlene Dumas wrote an essay, made an exhibition on paper about the resistant body, and made a portfolio with explicit art works and text from her hand.

Jessica Collins writes Pleasure Principles. ‘Pleasure is a free spirit with wings. It belongs to the body and flutters in and out of the cosmos.’ Jessica is an exciting new voice. She will be writing a recurring column for See All This later this year and is currently working on her first manuscript.

Daan Heerma van Voss contributes The President’s Body. Before a leader speaks, his body has already spoken.

And then there is Sarah Knigge’s intimate Labourland: Stories from the Womb. Sarah, our managing editor, recently gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Her piece explores one of the most transformative experiences a body can go through.

THE WONDER OF PRINT

This weekend I took the issue home. As always, the first thing I noticed were its imperfections. Something in its rhythm, some typo’s. Then I looked over my husband’s shoulder and saw the magazine again through fresh eyes:

‘This issue surpasses all previous excellent issues,’ he declared. Now, to be fair, he says something like that almost every season. But this time, I secretly agreed.

What had seemed perhaps too dark, too political on a screen became something different on paper. Rarely has the contrast between a magazine’s digital form and its printed incarnation been as striking as it is with this issue made with Marlene.

Paper has that extraordinary ability. Great printing has same extraordinary ability: together they can bring clarity, make something tangible and felt, elevate it, give it substance, and become a form of homage. Which is why I would like to thank Wilco Art Books in Amersfoort for their exceptional craftsmanship.

SPD AWARD

Speaking about craftmanship, on 11 June 2026, See All This received an SPD 61 Silver Medal from the Society of Publication Designers in New York, the world’s best creative competition for editorial content. We received it for Cooking is Caring, issue #40, in the category Independent Publishing.

Awards may have our name on them, but they are never won by one person.

What moves me most is what this award represents. A belief in independent publishing. A belief that curiosity matters. That craftsmanship matters. That beauty matters. And that taking culture seriously still matters.

BECOME A FRIEND

And now comes the part Lidewij Edelkoort told me I should be much more aggressive about. Don’t worry. This is as aggressive as I get.

Many of you read our newsletters. Many of you follow us on social media. Thousands and thousands enjoy See All This daily for free. And we are grateful for that. Grateful for your enthusiasm, for your love for art and art makers and for your commitment to See All This.

But magazines are not made from likes. They are made by readers. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms, AI, targeting and, mind you, censorship, paper is not a luxury. Paper is a necessity. As stated before, it is the only place where you can read freely and without anyone or anything trying to get your attention.

As William Forsythe reminded us:
‘Ambition needs helpers.’ And ours does too.