Rodder is pleased to announce James Ensor / Calvin Marcus, a dialogue between artists James Ensor (b. 1860, Ostend, Belgium; d. 1949, Ostend, Belgium) and Calvin Marcus (b. 1988, San Francisco, California). Although the works on view by Ensor and Marcus were created a century apart and within significantly different cultural contexts, both artists have developed visual languages that resist categorization, move between humor, the absurd, the grotesque and the uncanny, and give attention to objects that are often disregarded.

The grotesque and absurd take different forms in their work. Marcus often depicts scenes of isolation, solitary figures, sparse still lifes, and expansive or empty landscapes. Ensor, by contrast, often depicts the grotesque within public and social life, using crowds, caricatures, masks, and scenes of bourgeois society to expose the absurdity of collective behavior and authority.

The dialogue exhibition at Rodder will give insight into how Ensor moved between painting, drawing, and printmaking, shifting styles and scale throughout his career, while Marcus works across a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, print-making, and ceramics. For both artists, this movement between forms is accompanied by a close attention to color, surface, composition, and the physicality of their materials; made evident by the works on view.