Tacita Dean

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Tacita Dean (b. 1965) is an English visual artist.

1 Introduction
2 Biography
3 Controversy
4 Film works
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Introduction

Tacita Dean is best known for her film works, although she utilises a variety of media including drawing, photography and sound. She has produced numerous Standard 16mm and anamorphic 16mm films, often employing long takes and steady camera angles to create a serene, melancholy, but compelling atmosphere. Her anamorphic films are shot by cinematographer John Adderly. She has also published several volumes of her own writings, whose themes complement her visual work. Her more recent films do not include commentary, but several of her texts form companion pieces to the films.

The sea forms a theme through Dean's work, particularly the sublime other world of the open ocean, beyond the safety of the shore. Lighthouses are invoked as the boundary markers of this perilous realm. Many of her works are inspired by tales of marine misadventure, such as the tragic voyage of Donald Crowhurst ^[1]. Crowhurst set out to circumnavigate the globe solo, in his boat Teignmouth Electron. He ended up pottering in the Atlantic, recording false positions until he jumped overboard in despair. The artist tracked down his ruined boat on Cayman Brac in the Caribbean. Such relics are another common motif in Dean's work. The sound mirrors at Dungeness feature in one film. In documenting these relics the artist also documents human aspirations and obsessions, set against human failings and disappointments.

[edit] Biography

Tacita Dean was born in 1965 in Canterbury, England. She was educated at Kent College (private boarding school) Canterbury. Her brother is Ptolomy Dean, the architect. She studied at Falmouth School of Art, graduating in 1988. She studied in Athens for a year on a Greek government scholarship, before gaining a postgraduate degree from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, in 1992. The following year she won the 'Barclay's Young Artists' prize and exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery

Dean held her first solo exhibition The Martyrdom of St Agatha and Other Stories, at Galerija Skuc, Maribor, Slovenia. Since then she has had many solo exhibitions, including:

Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (1997);
ICA, Philadelphia, with US tour (1998);
Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2000),
MACBA, Barcelona (2001);
Tate St Ives (2005).
Schaulager, Basel Tacita Dean. Analogue: Films, Photographs, Drawings 1991-2006 (2006)

Tacita Dean was nominated for (but failed to win) the 1998 Turner Prize. She has undertaken special commissions for London's Millennium Dome, the Sadler's Wells Theatre, and for Cork, Ireland, as part of that city's European City of Culture celebrations. She has also completed residencies at the Sundance Institute, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, USA, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Berlin

[edit] Controversy

Later works by Tacita Dean appear virtually identical to videos predating their creation. There are two documented examples: "Blackout" by artist group Disinformation (1997) is almost identical to "Sound Mirrors". The correct chrolonology of these projects is documented in "Listening for the Enemy" by Brian Dillon, pp. 68-71, "Cabinet" magazine issue 12, New York, 2003. If there is any confusion about the similarity between the original Sound Mirrors film and Tacita Dean's (much later) "Sound Mirrors", readers should refer to art historian and curator Anda Rottenberg's letter to Art Monthly (October 1998) about the similarity between artist Katarzyna Kozyra's film "Bath House" - of women chatting in a bath house in Budapest, and Tacita Dean's (much later) film "Gellert" - also of women chatting in a bath house in Budapest. Although this exposure may have cost Tacita Dean the Turner Prize, what's most surprising is the fact that "Sound Mirrors" was commissioned (by The Public Art Development Trust) and exhibited (at Tate Britain and Glasgow's Tramway) after this "methodology" had already been publicly exposed in the art press.