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“To quote George Orwell: every artist ‘has a ‘message’...”

Interview with the Author: Christian Viveros-Fauné 

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"Transgressive, exuberant (and often funny) multiplicity is unquestionably central to Dumas’s work: in conversation she speaks repeatedly of “openness,” of seeking a fluidity both in her artistic process and in the images she seeks to create. Emphatically a figurative painter, Dumas is driven by gesture and serendipity alike, and by the confluence of diverse inspirations: if a viewer or reader experiences a work as a series of connecting threads, Dumas as an artist—in a manner recognizable to me, as a fiction writer—finds subject and form in a similar way. ...This is quite different from taking an existing story or image and producing one particular vision of it, which was the role of much classical art. Nor is it a straightforward representation of what is. Rather, it is an act of transformation. When Dumas has painted (from photographic sources) familiar icons—contemporary myths, if you will, like Amy Winehouse, or Osama bin Laden, or Marilyn Monroe—she has forced us to see them anew: dead Marilyn, rather than the sexy pinup; Osama as soft-eyed introvert, rather than ruthless terrorist. Similarly, with her unforgettable giant babies, or with what is perhaps her most famous image, 

 (1994), a portrait of her then-small daughter Helena, naked, glowering, with paint that resembles blood on her hands: in each instance, Dumas overturns visual expectations, marrying the known and the unknowable to create something novel."

A detail of a painting by Marlene Dumas, titled Longing, dated 2018.

"Dumas is driven by gesture and serendipity alike"

Long Reads for Summer

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"A tiny, highbrow volume"

This fall, the gallery will present solo exhibitions of work by 

 that illuminate the works on view and the artists who created them, from Albers’s intimate 

—“a book about people, about jazz, and about things”—to Pettibon’s cultural renditions in 

The cover of a book, titled Roy DeCarava: the sound i saw

Originally made as an artist book in 1960 and released in a new edition this fall, 

 records DeCarava’s photographic exploration of the relationship between the visual and aural. Here, DeCarava turns his gaze on legendary musicians Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday, among many others. Selected works from the original publication will be on view in an eponymous solo exhibition at the uptown gallery.

A spread from a book, titled Anni Albers Notebook 1970‚Äì1980.

For ten years beginning in 1970, Albers used her 

 to compose drawings and complex patterns relating to her large body of graphic work. This rare document reveals how she explored a range of dramatic and beautiful geometric compositions.

A spread from a book, titled On Weaving by Anni Albers.

 is Albers’s seminal meditation on the art of weaving, its history, its tools and techniques, and its implications for modern design. She dedicated the book to “my great teachers, the weavers of ancient Peru.”

The cover of a book, titled Lucas Arruda.

Featuring excerpts from a conversation between the artist and Hans Ulrich Obrist and texts by Fernanda Brenner and Chris Sharp, this 

 explores Arruda’s pursuit of light—an element he feels binds his paintings together.

The cover of a book, titled Philip-Lorca diCorcia.

Produced in close collaboration with the artist for a major European retrospective, 

 explores significant series by diCorcia, including those featured in his upcoming exhibition in Hong Kong, such as 

 series is also the focus of a book published in 2013.

The cover of a book, titled Roy DeCarava: Light Break.

Accompanying an eponymous exhibition at the gallery, 

 presents the first survey since 1996 of photographs by DeCarava, whose “poetry of vision” re-forms urban life, labor, love, and jazz into the discovery of “an intimate, emotional arc of transformation.”

The cover of a book, titled The Sweet Flypaper of Life.

 between DeCarava and the writer Langston Hughes captures daily life in Harlem through a combination of words and pictures. An afterword by Sherry Turner DeCarava traces the history and continuing importance of the book.

The cover of a book, titled, Paul Klee:¬†The Abstract Dimension.

Taking in some one hundred works from throughout Klee’s career, 

 examines a previously little-explored aspect of his oeuvre. The works are grouped under four themes: nature, architecture, painting, and graphic characters.

The cover of a book, titled Paul Klee: Irony at Work.

 through the lens of irony as a complex theme, and against the backdrop of Europe’s major political and artistic movements, Klee’s body of work takes on renewed significance as one of the most critical of its generation.

The cover of a book, titled Raymond Pettibon:¬†Homo Americanus.

Copublished by David Zwirner Books and Deichtorhallen Hamburg – Sammlung Falckenberg on the occasion of a major European retrospective in 2016, 

 sheds light on the development of Pettibon’s work as a kind of hive mind of American culture, unabashed and unique in its complexity.

The cover of a book, titled Raymond Pettibon A Pen of All Work.

 at Pettibon’s career to date includes nearly seven hundred images, contributions from important figures in the art-historical and cultural fields, and an interview with the artist. Beginning with childhood drawings, the book moves through to his mature work.




Required Reading for Fall

May 2018

Ruth Asawa: Monograph from David Zwirner Books

, a locus of the imprint’s mission to publish rare, out-of-print, and newly commissioned texts with an eye toward exceptional design. These accessible paperback volumes, which fit neatly in the average back pocket, range from late-in-life musings on art criticism from French painter Paul Gauguin to an idiosyncratic history of urinating figures in art by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn to visceral first-hand accounts of experiences with great works of art by radical feminist aesthetician Vernon Lee. The ninth and tenth additions to the series—

 by Donald Shambroom, published on the fiftieth anniversary of Marcel Duchamp’s death, and 

by Argentine writer César Aira—will be released this fall.

, principal of the Brooklyn-based design firm 

, to share his thought process behind the series’ distinct design, and the challenges in creating a cohesive format that foregrounds such a wide-ranging collection of literary texts on visual culture.

How did you tackle the series as a whole? What did you have to take into consideration?

In general, we needed a system that could deal with quite a lot of variety but still feel coherent and pleasurable to read. The trim size, typography, and grid were the three essential ingredients. We explored a lot of options and settled on a pretty traditional pocket-sized format that was tweaked to have a nicer balance between the text and white space. This grid was then based on a series of classical proportional relationships between the margins, gutter, and column. The comparatively modern font, Arnhem, adds a twist to this traditional framework, and it also ensured good legibility at all sizes.

What have you learned from this process now that we are coming up on the ninth and tenth additions to the series?

If the system had been any tighter or more prescriptive when we designed it for the first two books, it would have become problematic in subsequent ones. The variety in content is considerable and became more complex over time, from young Proust’s torso of an essay, to Rilke’s letters to Balthus, and on to John Ruskin’s panel-by-panel explanation of Giotto’s frescoes.

I also think the approach to the covers—a rigorous type framework combined with changing colors—turned out to be key. The colors are so wonderful to see as the series grows, and the complex links between a specific color and its book are fascinating.

What is your favorite design element of the series?

This may sound a little silly, but my favorite part of the series’ design is just a plain old text spread. I like how modest and straightforward it is. The layout is an accrual of small decisions that harmonize and then completely recede, so the reader can simply take in the text.

How did you come up with the idea to include quotes on the back covers?

This was a group decision and ended up being quite meaningful. The selection of a compelling, representative quote is tricky, but when the right quote appears on the back cover, it adds quite a lot of intrigue. Although the back cover would look good as a field of color alone, I think the quote feels a bit more welcoming and gives a taste of what’s inside.

What is your favorite title in the series?

 . . . well, it needs no explanation as to why it’s so entertaining. But I’d give the edge to the book on Giotto, just because what Ruskin is describing (the fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua) is the single greatest work of art I’ve ever experienced. I own maybe a dozen books just on that chapel’s frescoes!

A photograph of books in the David Zwirner Books Ekphrasis series.

Find the whole collection at David Zwirner Books

On the making of the series

Ekphrasis on ekphrasis

"A tiny, highbrow volume for the beach, or reveries of it: poems in the nostalgic, laconic manner of novelist Modiano, 2014 Nobel laureate..."

28 Paradises by Patrick Modiano, illustrated by Dominique Zehrfuss, published 2019.

A tiny highbrow volume

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.