Antwerp, Tim Van Laere Books 2024, 2024 Hardcover 224 pages, NL/ ENG / FR / IT text. 21x26cm fine. ISBN 9789464004304.
Marcel Dzama: The Moon is Following Me. Marcel Dzama (1974 Winnipeg, Canada. Lives and works in New York) has developed an immediately recognizable visual language that investigates human action and motivation, as well as the blurred relationship between the real and the subconscious. Drawing equally from folk vernacular as from art-historical and contemporary influences, Dzama?s work visualizes a universe of childhood fantasies and otherworldly fairy tales. Dzama?s image repertoire includes a wide range of art-historical quotations. One can recognize ballet costumes by Oskar Schlemmer or Francis Picabia, for example, and direct references to Francisco de Goya, Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys. However, it?s not just elements from the past that spur Dzama?s creativity. The music enthusiast has collaborated with various colleagues from the beginning of his career, whether as part of the Royal Art Lodge in Winnipeg, which he co-founded, or in the form of collaborations with Arcade Fire, Bob Dylan, Beck, Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth), the filmmaker Spike Jonze, the actress Amy Sedaris, the ensemble of the New York City Ballet, or fellow artists like Raymond Pettibon and Jockum Nordstr m. In his work Beuys love a girl who plays guitar he brings together the artist Joseph Beuys with the country-singer Dolly Parton. For the exhibition at the Tim Van Laere Gallery he started a series of drawings with more hopeful themes, more serene. Because the Trump years were so traumatizing.? says Marcel Dzama. ?Also I usually either do political drawing or I go for this kind of vacation feeling. Almost idyllic. A lot of them are based on photographs taken of my son and wife on vacation. I am still playing with this.