- - - - Copyright 2001 Micromedia Limited
- - - - SECTION: v.18(2) Summ'01 pg 92; ISSN: 0825-3854 CBCA-ACC-NO: 5150265 LENGTH: 518 words HEADLINE: Looking at Dzama BYLINE: Sommerman, Eileen BODY: [Graph Not Transcribed] In France, people must sometimes undergo handwriting analysis when they apply for a job. It is a bit astonishing, especially since some people are rejected based on the results. When I look at Marcel Dzama's drawings I might find his fluid and simple line to be a sign of directness and honesty, his wispy gestures a sign of levity and a sense of humour. I might see the outstretched arms as empathetic, infectious overtures. But if I actually read the drawings, I would not likely give him a job. Dzama draws a lot; it is his writing. His drawings are indeed legible if you are just following the lines. One shows a headless woman, reaching earnestly toward a series of faces--from which, we suppose, she will choose one. There is a very empty space just where her head should be. At first the situation seems like a fantastic offering of alternatives. But the more I look, the less possible it seems to fit one of the faces onto the headless woman. So many to choose from, but all somehow alien, as if none will fit. Perhaps this is less about offering, more about taking? When I first saw Dzama's drawing it was filled with possibility. The woman's headlessness, however, becomes unsettling. Her earnestness morphs into desperation. Opportunity turns to despair: none of the heads even seem that appealing after all. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze speaks hopefully about losing the face: ''how to unmake the face, by liberating in ourselves the questing heads which trace the lines of becoming?...Your secret can always be seen on your face and in your eyes. Lose your face....There is no longer a phantasm, but only programmes of life, always modified in the process of coming into being.'' With Deleuze, losing your face is a good thing, an important and liberating opportunity. Dzama's drawing doesn't make it seem nearly as great: those outstretched arms are begging. The girls nearest the headless woman have their eyes set toward her, watching disdainfully, or maybe pitifully--this, too, only reveals itself after a while, or it may be that it just happens after a while. Why hasn't Dzama drawn a headless man grasping? Am I projecting or is he commenting on--and perhaps right on about--female misgiving and flakiness? Isn't he too young to know this? Dzama tends to truncate his figures: sometimes they have no head, or are missing arms and legs. I don't think it is ruthless or dark, though; rather, he is exercising freedom, both his own and his characters'. And in doing so he makes fantastic statements--his exquisite and facile line can effectively seduce us into complicity. His drawings are legible, even if his ideas are cryptic. There is an enduring curiosity with his drawing; it is as if the work continues to change. It is astonishing to think that there could ever be a final conclusion drawn from studying his lines--or anyone's. Dzama's ''writing'' could be as deceptive as anyone's. Simple and innocent he is likely not, even if that is what the lines suggest. The work is much too seductive. JOURNAL-CODE: 0534 LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2001 - - - -
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