Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon: Let us Compare Mythologies

“Let us compare mythologies”, is an exhibition of collaborative works by Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon, two artists who have both been represented by the gallery since the mid-1990s.

On view at The Upper Room at the gallery’s London location, this presentation follows their show earlier this year, titled Forgetting the Hand, at David Zwirner, New York.

Dzama and Pettibon’s collaboration began in the summer of 2015 with the artists swapping the first of a series of drawings to be completed by the other. In a variation of the “exquisite corpse” method––wherein a partner is only given portions of an otherwise concealed drawing to work on––they developed each other’s compositions through improvisational illustration, collage, and writing. Following in the playful model of the Surrealists, who used this collaborative technique in the early twentieth century, the drawings on view combine the two artists’ distinct styles in a revealing and seamless manner. In several works, it is nearly impossible to determine who made what, which indicates how both strove to assimilate the other’s vision or anticipate his response.

As a continuation of the artists’ collaboration, this exhibition includes drawings originally made for the zine published by David Zwirner Books to coincide with Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 (September 2015), works produced jointly for the show in New York, as well as new compositions made together for the presentation in London. Also on view will be a mural-sized work on paper, It is big big business (or We s’port…and necessitate one another, thought to brush, word to image hand in hand…for the greatest interest…of writing thou art), featuring Pettibon’s depictions of surfers engulfed in enormous waves intertwined with Dzama’s illustrations of costumed characters.