Exhibition

Marcel Dzama: Empress of Night

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Now Open

June 28—August 8, 2025

Opening Reception

Saturday, June 28, 6–8 PM

Location

Los Angeles

606 N Western Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90004

Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat: 10 AM-6 PM

Artist

Marcel Dzama
View Press Release

Installation view, Marcel Dzama: Empress of Night, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, 2025

David Zwirner is pleased to present Empress of Night, an exhibition of new and recent work by Marcel Dzama, on view at the gallery’s 606 N Western Avenue location in Los Angeles.

Dzama’s recent works are fantastical visions of a lush and at-times flooded world where anthropomorphized animals and dancing figures are set against dense junglescapes and expansive skies. References to Francisco Goya and surrealist poet Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)—one of Spain's most important and celebrated writers—are evident throughout these compositions, suggesting parallels between the war-torn and uncertain eras in which those artists lived and the political, social, and ecological upheavals of our own. Some works make direct reference to the rise of authoritarianism in the world today, while others use allegory as a critical means of commenting on growing threats to democracy and human rights. Dzama made these works late at night—as is his nocturnal working style—and many are set against dark skies that contain celestial visions of stars and moons. Evoking a sense of joy and wonder, these nightscapes suggest hope and possibility even during times of unrest.

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Marcel Dzama Empress of Night

Among the new works are several large-format drawings, some of which are filled to the brim with animal life, which serve as a reminder of the toll being taken on the planet and its effects on all life-forms. These include The sleep of reason produces monsters (2025), which makes direct reference to Goya’s famous 1799 print of the same title.

Blue water blues (2024), is an absorbing, nearly monochromatic triptych that shows an underwater scene rife with marine life. I never came from your rib you came from my vagina (2025), another large-format triptych, presents a jubilant display of womanhood, which reads like a celebratory rejoinder to some of the more noxious strains of hypermasculinity that are increasingly prevalent in society today.

A centerpiece of the exhibition is Dzama’s 2023 film To live on the Moon (For Lorca), which was originally commissioned by Performa for that year’s iteration of the recurring performance festival in New York. For this presentation, the film is projected at a large scale within the main gallery, where a viewing area invites visitors to linger and engage with the work at their own pace. Select drawings adorn the walls, dramatically illuminated to echo the film’s lyrical and hypnotic tone.

Installation view, Marcel Dzama: Empress of Night, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, 2025

 

To live on the Moon (For Lorca), 2023, live performance at Performa Biennial 2023, New York. All photos by Maria Baranova

The film opens with a theatrical recreation of the 1936 assassination of Lorca by the Nationalist forces of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. In 1929, Lorca authored Trip to the Moon, a screenplay composed of seventy-three narrative vignettes filled with love, violence, and mysticism. Though it was never produced as a film, Lorca’s screenplay is viewed as a surrealist masterpiece. Dzama’s film, an homage to Lorca, mixes dreamy figures and imagery—including depictions of the moon that recall Georges Méliès’s seminal early film A Trip to the Moon (1902)—with themes of life, death, violence, and resurrection.

On Set: To live on the Moon (For Lorca)

Video produced by Yassel Iglesias, Krystan Dubois, and JerseyHavana

On the occasion of this exhibition and the first public viewing of To live on the Moon (For Lorca) in Los Angeles, Dzama is debuting a new online-only video that documents the behind-the-scenes process of making the 2023 Performa film.

Marcel Dzama on the set of To live on the Moon (For Lorca). Photo by Bill Gentle

On the set of To live on the Moon (For Lorca). Photo by Bill Gentle

The artist has also created a new zine, Empress of Night, for the exhibition. This richly illustrated publication features close‑up details of new and recent works presented in the show, across 40 pages designed by the artist by hand. You can buy the limited-edition zine via David Zwirner Books and at the Los Angeles gallery.  Shop now

Installation view, Marcel Dzama: Empress of Night, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, 2025

Marcel Dzama Empress of Night

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