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96 CANADIAN A RT • SPRING 2016 canadianart.ca 97

OPPOSITE: Behind-the-scenes photographs, clockwise from top left: Marcel Dzama lying on the backdrop curtain; a costume fitting for

one of the Seven Deadly Sins; the opening curtain in process; the Destroyer’s helmet and club arm at the costume shop COURTESY MARCEL DZAMA

FOLLOWING PAGES: Marcel Dzama Blue side chess set and Red side chess set (2015); Costume designs for The Most Incredible Thing (2016),

a collaboration with Justin Peck and Bryce Dessner for the New York City Ballet COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK/LONDON

This past winter, Winnipeg-

born, Brooklyn-based artist

Marcel Dzama collaborated

with the New York City

Ballet on two new projects.

The first was part of the

ballet’s Art Series, and included

a preview of Dzama’s film

A Flower of Evil, starring writer

and comic Amy Sedaris and

depicting a living chess game

between two duelling artists.

The second was a collaboration

with NYCB’s resident

choreographer, Justin Peck,

and Bryce Dessner, a member

of the band the National,

on an interpretation of a Hans

Christian Andersen fairy

tale, also depicting aesthetic

conflict. Andersen’s story tells

of a contest to create “the

most incredible thing,” with

a clockmaker presenting an

elaborate allegorical clock only

to have it destroyed, and its

destroyer deemed the winner.

Here, Dzama gives Canadian

Art access to behind-the-

scenes photos and sketches

of the film and the ballet—full

of the dark, expressionist

beauty for which Dzama’s art

has become known.

IMPRESARIO

MARCEL DZAMA and The Most Incredible Thing

ARTIST PROJECT

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