Lying deep within the urban metropolis of Hong Kong, Happy Valley is one of the most iconic racecourses in the world. It is also the chief source of inspiration for a new body of work by American artist Marcel Dzama. Jockeys ride through waves and cathedrals, Chinese symbols pulled from racing paraphernalia adorn the edges of paper, and bats swoop, hunting for prey. Dzama’s distinct visions of the racetrack come alive through a series of large-scale paintings and drawings, transposing imagery from his prolific oeuvre into this adrenaline-filled sporting arena. His new works reflect on the culture of horseracing and how the track has become not only a symbol of sport, but also of commerce, class, and wealth. The publication includes a conversation between Dzama and Laila Pedro. Published on the occasion of his solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Hong Kong in 2019, Marcel Dzama: Crossing the Line is available in both English only and bilingual English/traditional Chinese editions.

The first in a series of small-format publications devoted to single bodies of work, Fire from the Sun highlights Michaël Borremans’s new work, which features toddlers engaged in playful but mysterious acts with sinister overtones and insinuations of violence. Known for his ability to recall classical painting, both through technical mastery and subject matter, Borremans’s depiction of the uncanny, the perhaps secret, the bizarre, often surprises, sometimes disturbs the viewer. In this series of work, children are presented alone or in groups against a studio-like backdrop that negates time and space, while underlining the theatrical atmosphere and artifice that exists throughout Borremans’s recent work. Reminiscent of cherubs in Renaissance paintings, the toddlers appear as allegories of the human condition, their archetypal innocence contrasted with their suggested deviousness. In his accompanying essay, critic and curator Michael Bracewell takes an in-depth look into specific paintings, tackling both the highly charged subject matter and the masterly command of the medium. He writes, “The art of Michaël Borremans seems always to have been predicated on a confluence of enigma, ambiguity, and painterly poetics—accosting beauty with strangeness; making historic Romanticism subjugate to mysterious controlling forces that are neither crudely malevolent nor necessarily benign.” Published on the occasion of Borremans’s eponymous exhibition at David Zwirner in Hong Kong, this publication is available in both English-only and bilingual English/traditional Chinese editions.

One of the most influential figurative painters of his generation, Neo Rauch presents bold, new work in PROPAGANDA. Rauch is widely celebrated for his captivating compositions that bring together figurative painting and surrealism into an entirely new kind of visual encounter. They often hint at broader narratives and histories—seemingly reconnecting with artistic traditions of realism—but they remain dreamlike and impossible to reduce to a single story. Though his art is highly refined and executed with great technical skill, Rauch himself stresses the intuitive, deeply personal nature of how he works. As the artist notes, “My process is far less a reflection than it is drawing from the sediments of my past, which occurs in an almost trance-like state.” Eight large-scale canvases and seven smaller, more intimately scaled works continue the artist’s exploration of figuration and the ambiguous nature of meaning in visual art. In some of the larger works, the saturation of the canvas with characters, objects, and, forms, all rendered at different scales and in conflicting arrangements, creates a collage-like quality—a figurative scrapbook of Rauch’s personal iconography. The publication features a short story by acclaimed novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann, which was inspired by the paintings in this book. The fantastical text moves between present-day New York and an unknown time of enchanted forests, knights, and witches, exploring the many layers found in Rauch’s canvases. Published on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Hong Kong in 2019, Neo Rauch: PROPAGANDA is available in both English-only and bilingual English/traditional Chinese editions.

Marcel Dzama (*1974 in Winnipeg) is known for his prolific drawings, which are characterized by their distinctive palette and subject matter. He has recently expanded his practice to encompass film and three-dimensional works, thus developing an immediately recognizable language that draws from a diverse range of references and artistic influences, including Dada and Marcel Duchamp. Created in close collaboration with the artist, this publication presents his 2013 exhibition at David Zwirner in London, which included videos inspired by the game of chess and puppets and masks based on the characters, along with drawings, collages, dioramas, paintings, and sculptural works. Dzama utilized the architecture of the gallery itself--an eighteenth-century Georgian townhouse--by hanging puppets from a skylight above the five-story building's central spiral staircase and placing monitors in the windows so that his videos could be viewed from the street.

Carol Bove: Ten Hours presents new work by “sculpture's woman of steel,” as coined by Randy Kennedy in The New York Times. Her new sculptures expand on her investigations of materiality and form. Characterized by compositions of various types of steel, Bove’s ongoing series of "collage sculptures," begun in 2016, amalgamates theoretical and art-historical influences across time periods and disciplines. To create these lyrical and abstract assemblages, Bove pairs fabricated tubing that has been crushed and shaped at her studio with found metal scraps and a single highly polished disk. Luminous color is applied to parts of the composition, transforming the steel—more commonly associated with inflexibility and heft—into something that appears malleable and lightweight, like clay, fabric, or crinkled paper. Bove’s new works are smaller in scale and elaborate on the “collage sculptures,” with more complex forms that twist, fold, and bend into postures that belie their material construction. Bove manipulates steel to varying degrees, rendering gentle folds in some, and extreme, almost anthropomorphic contortions in others. Their contrasting textures—matte, glossy, or rough—create a further sense of visual play, heightening the surface tension throughout. The publication features a new interview with the artist by Johanna Burton. Published on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Hong Kong in 2019, Carol Bove is available in both English only and bilingual English/traditional Chinese editions.

Set in an enchanted forest, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the ideal subject for artist Marcel Dzama, whose work frequently references dreams, fairy tales, and mythical worlds. Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Shakespeare’s celebrated romantic comedy intertwines multiple narratives under the influence of transformation and witchcraft. The play is often staged with actors wearing animal masks, an aspect which appeals particularly to Dzama, whose work is characterized by the fusion of human and animal, fantasy and reality. The second title in David Zwirner Books’s Seeing Shakespeare series revisits the ultimate fairy tale through the eyes of a contemporary artist who feels a special affinity for its imagery.

This lavishly illustrated monograph is the definitive publication on the internationally renowned Canadian artist Marcel Dzama. Characterized by an immediately recognizable cast of fanciful and frightening characters, Dzama’s work draws from a diverse range of influences, including Dada and Marcel Duchamp. While the artist is best known for his delicate psychosexual drawings, his work also includes sculpture, painting, and film. More than 500 color images from the late 1990s through the present trace the artistic evolution and tremendous talent of this highly acclaimed young artist. Textual contributions include a foreword by the contemporary artist Raymond Pettibon, three original short stories inspired by Dzama’s work by Dave Eggers, an essay by the art historian Bradley Bailey, and an interview with Dzama by the filmmaker Spike Jonze.

Over the course of his three-decade career, Thomas Ruff has taken up many approaches to photography in his investigation into the status of the image in contemporary culture. In Thomas Ruff, the artist presents new work that continues his ongoing probe into the history, processes, techniques, and technology of photography. One of the most influential photographers working today, Ruff has redefined photography’s conceptual possibilities, simultaneously capturing and challenging the essence of the medium as a means for visual experience. He has investigated various photographic genres, including portraiture, the nude, and landscape and architectural photography, using both analog and digital technologies, and culling imagery from scientific archives, print media, and the internet. Presented here is a selection of Ruff’s most well-known works, as well as the newer Tripe/Ruff series, begun in 2018, which draws on negatives of India and Burma taken in the 1850s by an officer in the East India Company army. Also included is a conversation between Ruff and Okwui Enwezor, which took place at Haus der Kunst in Munich, in connection with the artist’s retrospective then on view. The conversation, published here for the first time, has been edited for this volume and examines Ruff’s artistic practice and inspiration, serving as an engaging and dynamic introduction to the artist. Published on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Hong Kong, in 2019, Thomas Ruff is available in both English-only and bilingual English/traditional Chinese editions.

Presenting recent developments in Wolfgang Tillmans’s portraiture and still lifes, Wolfgang Tillmans: DZHK Book 2018 features a broad selection of new and recent works that respond to their surroundings while at the same time embodying a self-contained environment. Few artists have shaped the scope of contemporary art and influenced a younger generation more than Wolfgang Tillmans. Since the early 1990s, his works have epitomized a new kind of subjectivity in photography, pairing intimacy and playfulness with social critique and the persistent questioning of existing values and hierarchies. Through his seamless integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies, he has expanded conventional ways of approaching the medium, and his practice continues to address the fundamental question of what it means to create pictures in an increasingly image-saturated world. Published on the occasion of Tillmans’s exhibition at David Zwirner in Hong Kong in 2018, this fully bilingual catalogue juxtaposes pictures of intimacy and friendship with views and angles of the world at large. An aerial view of the Sahara desert displays almost infinite detail while being monochromatic and near-abstract in appearance. In line with Tillmans’s interest in exhibitions as amplifiers of a particular, underlying perspective, each of the works engages in an intricate system of relationships between its aesthetic elements, subject, and institutional setting. Seen together, they implicate the viewer as an active part of the dialogue. The 2016 interview with author Allie Biswas of The Brooklyn Rail has been edited and expanded by the artist for this catalogue.