Marcel Dzama, the Winnipeg-born, Brooklyn-based artist, cites Francis Picabia as his favourite artist. For Dzama, whose practice includes painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, performance, film, music, poetry and songwriting, the protean French artist Picabia is the ideal artistic ancestor. In addition to their common multivalent art making, they share a sense of play, an engagement with an eccentric erotics and a refusal to recognize traditional notions about what defines any art form.
Border Crossings asked Marcel to see “Francis Picabia: Femmes,” an exhibition of 28 paintings produced over three decades that was on exhibition at the Michael Werner Gallery in New York from September 5 to November 2, 2024. The following interview was conducted by phone to New York on November 4. Marcel Dzama’a most recent touring exhibition, “Ghosts of Canoe Lake,” opened at Winnipeg’s Plug In ICA on November 22, 2024, and runs until March 8, 2025.