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Crown Point Press
Marcel Dzama
Marcel Dzama
New York-based artist Marcel Dzama is best known for his drawings, although he has also worked in sculpture, film, collage, painting, printmaking, and costume design. During a two-week work period in the Crown Point studio in 2015, Dzama created three large color aquatints and a portfolio of twelve black and white etchings.
Two of Dzama’s three large aquatints ("Our Daughter’s Dance with Wisdom" and "Here’s a Fine Revolution") refer to costumes and sets he was designing at the time in collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck for "The Most Incredible Thing", performed by the New York City Ballet in 2016. The third color etching, "The Beauty that is Born from the Seed of the Beast", is reminiscent of a 1940s-style movie poster. A three-eyed beauty wears a feathered headdress from which a small imp tumbles. Behind the beauty is a brooding bear-like beast. Dzama, borrowing a phrase from Francisco Goya, wrote on the printing plate in cursive script, “Le descanoña” which translates as “she fleeces him,” hinting at the perhaps complicated relationship between the beauty and the beast.
Dzama’s portfolio of twelve etchings, "The Fallen Fables", refers to fairy tales and mythology, and makes art historical references to Duchamp, Picabia, and Picasso. Each image is a narrative timelessly encapsulated.
Image Credit:
Marcel Dzama, "Here's a Fine Revolution", 2015
… In one series of drawings, one thing can symbolize something, but in the next series it will represent something entirely different… like a movie director who uses the same actors in each film.
from an interview with film maker Spike Jonze, 2008
Marcel Dzama was born in 1974 in Winnipeg, Canada. He received a B.F.A. in 1997 from the University of Manitoba, where he was a founding member of a group of artists known as the Royal Art Lodge (1996-2008). He has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. His works are held in many museum collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Tate Gallery, London. He lives and works in Brooklyn and is represented by the David Zwirner Gallery, New York.
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