Dimensions: 350 x 280 mm
Copyright: © Marcel Dzama, courtesy of David Zwirner, New York | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Marcel Dzama's "Untitled" presents us with a group of figures rendered in ink and watercolor, their bodies seemingly burdened by a peculiar, cloud-like form. Editor: It's captivating! The minimal palette creates a strangely unsettling mood, almost like a forgotten dream. The figures are so delicate and the cloud is so weighty. Curator: Right, Dzama's practice often engages with surreal narratives, drawing on influences from Dada and early cinema. I'm interested in how the artist uses traditional media to explore themes of labor and burden. Who bears the weight, and why? Editor: And what does that burden even represent? It’s gendered labor, clearly, and the passive gazes embedded in the cloud suggest the weight of social expectations. This work speaks to the ways women’s bodies are historically positioned as both caretakers and symbols. Curator: Indeed, considering the repetitive nature of the figures, one might even argue that it points to the mechanization of labor. Editor: It’s a powerful piece, prompting us to reflect on the roles we're assigned, the burdens we carry, and the societal expectations that shape us. Curator: I agree; it invites us to consider the materials and techniques used in relation to the social and political contexts of its creation.
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This untitled drawing shows a group of seven naked female figures supporting a grey cloud-like mass. Cartoon faces delineated by crudely drawn eyes, noses and mouths crowd the grey mass, suggesting that it is a conglomerate of characters. The women hold their legs together and point their toes, floating in empty space. This neutral background is a standard feature in Dzama’s drawings which typically portray figures – human and anthropomorphised or hybridised animals and trees – interacting without a background. Here the figures appear to be airborne, their group pose suggesting a public performance or a ritual of some kind. The women’s features are blank and their bodies nearly identical in form; small variations in hair style and colour are all that distinguish them from each other. The rounded grey mass supported above their heads evokes a group of clouds whose round eyes and elongated mouths convey a mood of comical anxiety. Similar characters in the background of a painting entitled Ghost Park 2004 (reproduced in The Last Winter, [p.21]) and in a cloudy mass in the title sequence of Dzama’s 2006 film, Sad Ghost (reproduced in Tree with Roots, p.122), indicate that they represent ghosts.
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