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Marcel Dzama — Her name was on our tongue
Marcel Dzama — Her name was on our tongue
Marcel Dzama — Her name was on our tongue
Marcel Dzama

Her name was on our tongue

2008

In this intimate acrylic on canvas from 2008, Marcel Dzama presents one of the solitary, otherworldly figures that have come to define his practice. Measuring just 25.4 × 20.3 cm, the work distills his characteristic visual language into a tightly composed portrait, where muted tones and precise rendering lend the subject an air of quiet strangeness. The title, "Her name was on our tongue," carries the suggestive weight of folklore and collective memory, as if the depicted figure belongs to some shared mythology known only in whispers. This balance between the tender and the unsettling is central to Dzama's appeal, and the small scale here intensifies rather than diminishes the work's presence. Dzama's cast of recurring characters, including cowboys, dancers, and spectral forms, populates a visual world that sits somewhere between fairy tale and nightmare. Whether arranged in dense, ritualistic crowd scenes or isolated as individual presences, these figures accumulate meaning across his body of work, each appearance adding another layer to an evolving personal iconography. "Her name was on our tongue" belongs to this tradition of the intimate portrait within his practice, offering collectors a concentrated encounter with a singular figure rather than the elaborate tableaux for which he is also celebrated. Dzama's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as the Tate in London, situating this signed work within a practice of significant institutional recognition. For collectors drawn to figurative art with genuine conceptual depth, this modestly scaled canvas carries a presence well beyond its dimensions.

Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Overall
Signed
Yes

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About this work

Marcel Dzama, Her name was on our tongue, 2008

In this intimate acrylic on canvas from 2008, Marcel Dzama presents one of the solitary, otherworldly figures that have come to define his practice. Measuring just 25.4 × 20.3 cm, the work distills his characteristic visual language into a tightly composed portrait, where muted tones and precise rendering lend the subject an air of quiet strangeness. The title, "Her name was on our tongue," carries the suggestive weight of folklore and collective memory, as if the depicted figure belongs to some shared mythology known only in whispers. This balance between the tender and the unsettling is central to Dzama's appeal, and the small scale here intensifies rather than diminishes the work's presence. Dzama's cast of recurring characters, including cowboys, dancers, and spectral forms, populates a visual world that sits somewhere between fairy tale and nightmare. Whether arranged in dense, ritualistic crowd scenes or isolated as individual presences, these figures accumulate meaning across his body of work, each appearance adding another layer to an evolving personal iconography. "Her name was on our tongue" belongs to this tradition of the intimate portrait within his practice, offering collectors a concentrated encounter with a singular figure rather than the elaborate tableaux for which he is also celebrated. Dzama's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as the Tate in London, situating this signed work within a practice of significant institutional recognition. For collectors drawn to figurative art with genuine conceptual depth, this modestly scaled canvas carries a presence well beyond its dimensions.

Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 25.4 x 20.3 cm
Year
2008
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Independent Curators International (ICI) Benefit Auction

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Collected by

Gavin Kennedy