Exhibitions
Marcel Dzama's fantastic visions of a lush world
606 Western Avenue, the site of David Zwirner's Los Angeles headquarters, is currently hosting the Empress of Night exhibition by Canadian artist Marcel Dzama, a journey through his entire universe that will be on view until August 8, showcasing works created throughout 2024 and 2025.
The title is an intrinsic part of the exhibition at David Zwirner in Los Angeles, and he explains it this way: “I’ve been obsessed with the moon, and this was just another version of it. My wife came up with that title. I was reading “To the Moon” by William Wordsworth, a poem primarily about the moon and the night. The trip to Morocco was where I became obsessed. We went to this place called Chefchaouen. It’s like the city right before the Atlas Mountains, and it’s all painted blue. And it was the day of the pink spring moon. It felt so close.”
Marcel Dzama, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 2025. © Marcel Dzama. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner.
This is Dzama's fiftieth solo exhibition at David Zwirner since 1998. Dzama's recent works are fantastical visions of a lush, sometimes flooded world where anthropomorphized animals and dancing figures are set against dense jungle landscapes and expansive skies.
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from 2025 is a clear allusion to the work of Goya, and the triptychs Blue Water Blues from 2024 stand out. Dzama explores themes from ecology to social criticism with nocturnal visions and natures with anthropomorphic, surreal figures, inspired by the aforementioned Goya or the texts of Federico García Lorca, where they evoke social, political and ecological crises.
Installation view: Marcel Dzama: Empress of Night, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, 2025. Courtesy of David Zwirner.
It includes a film, twenty-four small and medium-sized works, and eleven large works on paper. Marcel Duchamp is another artist who consistently features in his work. “He's the first contemporary artist I've really heard of because I saw his name, and it was like mine: 'Oh, Marcel!'” explains the Canadian.
Regarding the 2024 Blue Water Blues triptych, Dzama explains the entire process, “So with the triptychs, I’ll put two next to each other, and then I’ll take one out, move one, and then put the other one next to it. And the nice thing about painting everything blue is that I can paint it on the wall, not on the floor, because it’s much more natural to paint standing up than on the floor.”
