Timothy Taylor Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new work by Canadian artist Marcel Dzama. For his third show at the gallery, Dzama will be showing a 30-minute film, The Lotus Eaters. A rough cut was first screened at MoMA, New York, in 2006. Since then Dzama has re-filmed and edited The Lotus Eaters, and the Director’s Cut will be premiered in a specially installed mini-cinema at 21 Dering Street.

The Lotus Eaters tells the story of an artist driven insane by the death of his wife. The artist tries to bring her back to life by drawing a fantasy world inhabited by his wife and a variety of creatures. He is killed by his doppelgänger and enters the fantasy world. Once inside this parallel universe, the creatures attack him and his wife comes to the rescue. Shot in black and white, without dialogue, and accompanied by a 1940s soundtrack, the film is reminiscent of Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou (1929).

I’ve been making films since I was a kid. I had a Fisher Price Pixel Vision camera that I got when I was 12. The first thing I remember filming was a stop motion animation with creatures I had made out of plasticine.
Marcel Dzama, 2007

The Lotus Eaters brings to life the cast of characters Marcel has been drawing since his childhood. The long, dark, cold Winnipeg winters meant that Marcel spent a lot of time inside drawing a dystopian world inhabited by femmes fatales, bats, bears, cowboys and superheroes. Tree people, masked women and hybrids of humans, animals and plants evoke Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A selection of costumes and photo-collages from the film will be displayed in our 24 Dering Street space. Despite a wide range of influences from literature and art history, the film, costumes and photo-collages in this exhibition are unmistakeably and uniquely Marcel Dzama.

Marcel Dzama was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1974, and studied at the University of Manitoba. Recent solo exhibitions include; Marcel Dzama, Ikon Gallery Birmingham and Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland, (2006); Drawings by Marcel Dzama: From the Bernardi Collection, Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario, Canada (2003); The Lotus Eaters, Centre d’art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain (2005); More Famous Drawings, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, Canada (2000). Recent group exhibitions have included Into Me/ Out of Me, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York, USA (2006); New Work / New Acquisitions, MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art), New York, USA (2005); Max Ernst and the Tradition of the Modern, Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Germany (2005). In 2007, forthcoming group exhibitions will include; Symbolism and Contemporary Art at The Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal, Germany, and Cult Fiction, opening at the New Art Gallery, Walsall and touring to Nottingham, Leeds, Aberystwyth and Carlisle.

Timothy Taylor Gallery is at 21 and 24 Dering Street, London, W1S 1TT. Open 10-6pm Mon-Fri; 10-1pm Sat.

For further information contact Lee Johnson on 020 7409 3344 or [email protected].
A fully illustrated catalogue including an interview by Julien Bismuth will accompany the exhibition.