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- - - - Marcel Dzama uses various shades of green and brown. The Strange, Prescient Art of Marcel Dzama A young Canadian artist on his colors, themes and early fame By Stephen Elliott
July 3 — I have this box, but it's not really a box. It's the new art book of Marcel Dzama's art, "The Berlin Years," published by McSweeney's Books. Like its packaging, there's something self-referential about Dzama's art and something reflective of the packaged world we live in. OUTSIDE OF the box is an introduction and interview by Sarah Vowell. Inside, is an introduction by Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from "Lord Of The Rings"), a reproduced scrapbook and 32 full-size loose-leaf prints on the same paper used for the originals. McSweeney's was so confident of the faithfulness of the reproductions that the originals, unmarked, are actually mixed into the first print run of the book. Dzama, a 27-year-old from Winnipeg, Canada, is the founder of the enormously popular Royal Art Lodge, a collective of artists that creates drawings collaboratively and sells them for $25 each. He is also one of the rising stars of the art world. He works in military shades of green and brown; one of the browns is actually root beer, whose rich color, according to Dzama, cannot be found in an ink base that compares. The work is rich with influence from films, comics and, most heavily, advertising. Upon first viewing one can't help but think of "The Matrix," how the characters eat gray pieces of sludge but they see and taste steak. Dzama paints the sludge, but you know it's steak. Like Warhol, Dzama's work is influenced by modern advertising, except in reverse. While Warhol reveled in the colors and imagery of popular culture, Dzama strips it down, turning an X-ray on pop culture to show the skeletons beneath the marketing without losing the message. One relates on a superficial level to his vampires and tin monsters but with the strange feeling of viewing the truth. He gives us back our billboards and Superbowl ads, stripped of brightness; tragic, scary, but not without beauty. In one drawing Dzama uses captions like ADHESIVE to explain what a girl is holding in one hand. Another picture has a teacher writing DECAPITATION for her students on a blackboard. A bat chews eagerly on a girl's arm while a smile dances playfully across her lips. Dorothy and the Tin Man fight over a bicycle, the wheels bent by their force. A woman with her skirt raised compares her legs to a half-human tree also with its skirt raised. Dzama's characters are happy and oblivious, ladies with fur collars and small eyes wave joyously, the stripped corpses of animals slung over their forearms. A man in a green hat smiles, triumphant, upon sawing his body in half to split from his three conjoined twins. Only the monsters are sinister and defiant, an evil-faced human tree pushing a cigarette to the lips of a dying woman. Count Dracula angrily sends his message of damnation to the people of Canada, his fist raised over his head. The monsters are cunning and demanding, the humans as if they were dosed with too much prozac and easy-to-swallow news. This is the strange, prescient art of Marcel Dzama. I spoke to him last month about his work and new-found fame. ELLIOTT: One of the prints from "The Berlin Years" shows Dorothy wrestling with the Tin Man over a bicycle. When I think of "The Wizard Of Oz" I'm thinking of the absolute peak of Technicolor. Yet you use dull, flat colors in your work. So why the "Oz?" Where's the line? DZAMA: The Tin Man seemed like a good character to use because he could be remorseless because of the missing heart. That idea and just the character design appealed to me. I made a tin man costume with tin foil and furnace parts because I thought it would help me be more heartless, we used it in some videos. And the colors? I use dull colors in my drawings because I started out using a root beer base, because it seemed like an interesting idea, and when it turned out that it worked quite well as an ink, I started using other colors that would complement it, like grays from Higgins black writing ink and, more recently, Dr. P.H. Martin's olive green and vermilion. I really like the Martin's inks because they are water based and transparent. They don't have them in Winnipeg, so I just pick them up when I travel. The muted color scheme allows the occasional brighter yellow or red to pop out on the wall in a show, which I like. As far as the "Wizard Of Oz," I actually prefer the silent black-and-white version from the '20s. Your work is very reminiscent of Henry Darger, the contemporary Chicago artist. Darger is the artist most associated with "outsider art," art meant to exist outside of the mainstream. Was Darger a big influence for you? Do you consider yourself an outsider artist? I only learned about Darger a couple years ago, when I kept seeing his name in reference to my artwork so I looked him up. I wouldn't consider him an influence because I'd already established my current style before learning about him, but I enjoy his work a lot. I wouldn't consider myself an outsider artist because I have a university degree in painting [from the University of Manitoba]. It seems that your popularity is growing exponentially by the day, with recent shows in Germany, Switzerland, Santa Monica and New York. Your art has an element of nostalgia to it. It evokes fairy tales and film noir. Not only do you reference cultural characters from the 1950s but many of the characters have a look like they stepped from an old Sears catalog. I think that makes the art easier to relate to. How important is it to you that people connect to your work? I make art primarily for myself and to show my friends, so I guess it's important to make art that they can connect to. I think the nostalgic feel adds an interesting element, it makes them seem somewhat familiar even though that style isn't that prominent currently. I also think that fashionwise, that time period is hard to beat. How about your influences. What comic books do you read? What music do you like? My main influence are the other members of the Royal Art Lodge, we've drawn together enough that we can't help but influence each other. I've been very influenced by Inuit art, especially some drawings and watercolors I've seen. Winnipeg has the largest collection of Inuit art in the world, I believe. They can be quite simple in a great way and often have sparse backgrounds and isolated characters. They often have a really great look to them. When I was a school kid I used to read lots of comics. This started me on drawing, I would make my own comics about my teddy bear, whose name happened to be Ted. My favorite artists from comics were early ones like Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko who had a real heavy ink style. Captain America, co-created by Jack Kirby, was a favorite of mine and I sometimes use an altered version of his costume on some of my characters. I like all kinds of music but some of my all time favorites are P.I.L., Yoko Ono, T-Rex, and Anton Karas. P.I.L. has been a favorite of mine since high school, especially their "Metal Box" album. The guitarist Keith Levine gets some of the best sounds ever to come out of a guitar. The songs are really free form and experimental and have a heavy dub influence, even the packaging is a form of art as the record came in a metal film canister. Yoko Ono is someone who's music I've discovered more recently. The current CD re-releases of her albums all had bonus tracks recorded just with a tape recorder and I'm really into these at the moment because they have a great intimate feel. T-Rex's "Electric Warrior" and "Slider" albums are classics with Marc Bolan's best songwriting and Tony Visconti's wonderful production. Anton Karas was a zither player popular in the 1950s, and I can't stop listening to his theme from the "Third Man" film. My wife, Shelley, and I even played it at our wedding. So Marcel, how are you handling your success? You're only 27 years old. You're an idol to some of the biggest cultural heroes of our time—Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell. You're represented by the David Zwirner gallery in New York, one of the most influential art galleries in the world. What's that like? I've been very fortunate in my art career. It's something I would never have expected. After finishing art school I was applying to stores like Home Depot and WalMart. You know, places where you have to take a urine test before you get your minimum wage. Even those places wouldn't hire me. So I was lucky when I got included in a group show at the Richard Heller gallery [in Santa Monica, Calif.] that kind of started my art career. I've felt very honored to show with galleries like David Zwirner and Timothy Taylor. It's a little overwhelming at times. Your newest book was recently released by McSweeney's. But it's not really a book, at all, it's a box. Whose idea was that? Can you say something about this new book, the way it's laid out. Your relationship with McSweeney's? I'm really happy with the way this came out. Part of it is a reproduction of one of my sketch books and part of it is 32 reproductions of my drawings not bound together. They look like limited-edition prints, which I guess they kind of are. Dave Eggers came up with the idea to not bind the drawings together and to have the package come in a fold-apart box. McSweeney's did a really great job. I've been working with McSweeney's for a few years now. I've done the illustrations for some books as well as some covers. They are great to work with, and they always work with great writers. You also have a short film in the next McSweeney's, McSweeney's XI, which comes with a DVD. What's the film like? What does film offer you that makes it preferable to drawing sometimes? I have a video coming out in the next McSweeney's called "The Fun Show." I made this with Neil Farber. It's a children's show featuring puppets and it teaches a lesson about life. It was filmed with a Fisher Price video camera—an obscure camera that uses standard audiocassettes. I got it as a Christmas present when I was a little kid. But I don't see film as preferable to drawing. They're both great ways of expression and expression is always good. - - - - Stephen Elliott is the author of three novels including "What It Means To Love You" and "A Life Without Consequences," both published by MacAdam/Cage. He is the Marshall McCall Lecturer at Stanford University. - - - -
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