Marcel Dzama: Even the Ghost of the Past
Opening on March 6, David Zwirner is pleased to present a new exhibition by Marcel Dzama. For the last decade, Canadian-born Dzama has shown extensively throughout North America and Europe. Transforming 519 West 19th Street into an odeum of imagination, Dzama's ambitious fifth solo exhibition at the gallery will include single drawings, composite drawings, costumes, dioramas, and film.
Marcel Dzama is best known for his figurative compositions of pen and watercolor on manila-colored paper. Bearing a characteristic palette of muted browns, grays, greens, and reds, Dzama's drawings are populated by an expansive cast of human, animal, and hybrid characters. In this exhibition distinct personalities take center stage, most notably the masked and armed "terrorist. In the sixteen-part drawing Inflated Threat, 2007, this character is obsessively repeated amongst cowboys, archers, and femmes fatales, suggesting the exaggerated climate of fear and shoot-'em-up mentality at the forefront of American politics. Despite the works' formal and psychological complexity, the artist commonly places his fantastic personae against a blank background; avoiding a definite narrative context in the drawings, Dzama consequently invites various interpretations.
For more information about available works, please contact inquiries@davidzwirner.com