The Course of Human History Personified

DZAMA, Marcel, Jason Rosenfeld and Jason Tougaw

ISBN 10: 0976913615 / ISBN 13: 9780976913610

Published by David Zwirner Inc, New York, 2006

First edition. Hardcover. Exhibition catalog for a show that ran September 8 through October 8, 2005. Features text by Jason Rosenfeld and Jason Tougaw. An elaborate production with softcover book and long foldout plate both bound into stiff boards. A near fine copy with some very minute wear. No dust jacket as issued. Seller Inventory # 210761

Synopsis:

"Bats, nurses, Marlene Dietrich, a malevolent figure in a bear suit, two cowboys playing king-of-the-mountain on a rosebush, a group of men placidly eating babies at a makeshift picnic table, while, above them, a tree grows more babies: Marcel Dzama is back. As readers will learn in The Course of Human History Personified, he's a sleepwalker, a sleepdrawer--""I draw during the day, but the ideas come at night."" He records his visions in a bedside-table notebook. The finished work, in ink and watercolor, in a limited color scheme, against empty backgrounds, stripped of narrative context, offers many possible interpretations. Its cast of characters is expansive and in each drawing their roles become more complex and defined. Dzama's influences include Blake, Goya, Botticelli, and James Ensor and his sources encompass native mythology, Inuit art, Dante's Divine Comedy, medieval paintings and American folklore. The title, The Course of Human History Personified, is borrowed from Dante and recalls the grandiose artistic and literary cycles of the nineteenth century such as Thomas Cole's 1836 The Course of Empire, where nature plays as large a role as humans. Here nature is personified--imagined characters and trees and beasts assume base human characteristics. If it's a dark view of the world, it's also an entrancing one."

About the Author: Known for his figurative compositions of pen and watercolor on manila-colored paper with a characteristic palette of muted browns, grays, greens, yellows, and reds, Dzama s drawings are populated by human characters, animals, hybrids sometimes combined with text that are placed against empty backgrounds. Caught in unlikely situations, his characters and their environments are stripped of specific narrative contexts, thus offering many possible interpretations. The artist's cast of characters is expansive and characters often reappear, though in each drawing their roles become more complex and defined. The work draws from a variety of sources, among them native mythology, Inuit art, Dante s Divine Comedy, medieval paintings, and American folklore. Dzama is influenced by the work of William Blake, Francisco de Goya, Sandro Botticelli, and James Ensor, among others.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Course of Human History Personified
Publisher: David Zwirner Inc, New York
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Soft cover
Edition: First Edition.