Tacita Charlotte Dean

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, RA (born 1965) is a British / German

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

who works primarily in film. She was a nominee for the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Los Angeles, California.Tacita Dean, Julie Mehretu, June 8 - July 20, 2018
Marian Goodman.

Early life and education

Dean was born in Canterbury, Kent. Her mother is named Jenefer and her father was Joseph Dean, a lawyer who studied classics at Merton College, Oxford. She has a sister named Antigone and a brother, the architect

Ptolemy Dean Ptolemy Hugo Dean (born 1968) is a British architect, television presenter and the 19th Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey. He specialises in historic preservation, as well as designing new buildings that are in keeping with their hist ...

. Her grandfather was

Basil Dean Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unof ...

, the founder of

Ealing Studios Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...

. Dean was educated at

Kent College ) , established = 1885 , closed = , type = Public SchoolIndependent day and boarding school , religious_affiliation = Methodist , president = , head_label = , hea ...

, Canterbury. After a foundation year in Canterbury, she studied at

Falmouth University Falmouth University ( kw, Pennskol Aberfal) is a specialist public university for the creative industries based in Falmouth and Penryn, Cornwall, England. Founded as Falmouth School of Art in 1902, it was later known as Falmouth College of Ar ...

, graduating in 1988. From 1990 to 1992, Dean studied for a master's degree at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

Career

In 1995, Dean was included in ''General Release: Young British Artists'' held at the XLVI

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. She is one of the "key names", along with Jake and Dinos Chapman,

Gary Hume Gary Stewart Hume (born 9 May 1962) is an English artist. Hume's work is strongly identified with the YBA who came to prominence in the early 1990s. Hume lives and works in London and Accord, New York.

Sam Taylor-Wood Samantha Louise Taylor-Johnson OBE ( née Taylor-Wood; 4 March 1967) is a British filmmaker and photographer. Her directorial feature film debut was 2009's '' Nowhere Boy'', a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter ...

Fiona Banner Fiona Banner (born 1966), also known as The Vanity Press is a British artist. Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, installation and text, and demonstrates a long-standing fascination with the emblem of fighter aircraft and their role within cul ...

and Douglas Gordon, of the

Young British Artists The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsm ...

(YBAs). Her work actually had little in common with the prominent YBAs,

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...

and

Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, CBE, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and ...

. In 1997, Dean moved to London. That same year she began to exhibit splices of magnetic tape cut the length required to document the duration of the sound indicated, such as a raven's cry. In 2001 she was given a solo show entitled ''Tacita Dean: Recent films and Other Works'' at

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

. For the season 2004/2005 in the

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August ...

Dean designed the large scale picture (176 sqm) "Play as Cast" as part of the exhibition series ''Safety Curtain'', conceived by

museum in progress museum in progress is a private art association based in Vienna. The non-profit art initiative was created in 1990 by Kathrin Messner and Josef Ortner († 2009) with the aim to develop new presentation forms for contemporary art. The projects ...

. In 2014 Dean became an

artist in residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

at the

Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

. She is a founding member of savefilm.org and vigorously campaigns to save the medium of film.

Work

Film

Dean is best known for her work in 16 mm film, although she utilises a variety of media including drawing, photography and sound. Her films often employ long takes and steady camera angles to create a contemplative atmosphere. Her anamorphic films are shot by cinematographers John Adderley and Jamie Cairney. Her sound recordist is Steve Felton. She has also published several pieces of her own writing, which she refers to as 'asides,' which complement her visual work. Since the mid-1990s her films have not included commentary, but are instead accompanied by often understated optical sound tracks. The sea was a persistent theme in Dean's work, especially during the 1990s. During that decade, she explored the tragic maritime misadventures of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur English sailor whose ambition to enter a race to solo circumnavigate the globe ended in deception, existential crisis and, eventually, tragedy. Dean has made a number of films and blackboard drawings relating to the Crowhurst story, exploiting the metaphorical richness of such motifs as the ocean, lighthouses and shipwrecks. Re-turning to her attraction with the sea, ''Amadeus (swell consopio)'' was made for the Folkestone Triennial (three-year art show) in 2008. In 1997, Dean made an audio work based on her futile effort to find the submerged artwork ''Spiral Jetty'' by

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

in the Great Salt Lake of Utah. ''Sound Mirrors'' (1999) takes its name from the tracking devices built during the 1920s and 1930s and planted in the Kent countryside to detect incoming German aircraft. In 2000, Dean was awarded a one-year

German Academic Exchange Service The German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD (german: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), was founded in 1925 and is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation. Organisation ''DAAD'' is a ...

(DAAD) scholarship to Berlin, where she moved that year with her partner, artist Mathew Hale.Emily Eakin (31 October 2011)
Celluloid Hero
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. She devoted attention to the architecture and cultural history of Germany, making films of such iconic structure as the

Palast der Republik The Palace of the Republic (german: link=no, Palast der Republik) was a building in Berlin that hosted the ''Volkskammer'', the parliament of East Germany, from 1976 to 1990. The Palace of the Republic, also known as the "People's Palace", was ...

. ''Fernsehturm'', is a 44-minute film set in the revolving cafe of the East Berlin television tower, completed in 1969 on Alexanderplatz. Other projects have concerned important figures in post-war German cultural history, such as W. G. Sebald and

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

. Recent films capture important artists and thinkers of the last fifty years and feature

Mario Merz Mario Merz (1 January 1925 – 9 November 2003) was an Italian artist, and husband of Marisa Merz. Life Born in Milan, Merz started drawing during World War II, when he was imprisoned for his activities with the ''Giustizia e Libertà'' antif ...

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

Leo Steinberg Leo Steinberg (July 9, 1920 – March 13, 2011) was a Russian-born American art critic and art historian. Life Steinberg was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, the son of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, a Jewish lawyer and Socialist Revolutionary Party polit ...

, Julie Mehretu,

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

, and

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...

. For example, ''Craneway Event'' (2008) is a film about Cunningham working on something with his dancers over three afternoons on site. In 2006, Dean shot ''Kodak'', a movie in a

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

factory in eastern France — the last one in Europe to produce 16-mm film stock. A few weeks after she visited, it closed for good. In 2013, Dean exhibited ''JG'', a 26-minute 35 mm film in colour and black and white at the Frith Street Gallery in London. The film returns to Dean's fascination with the famous land artwork ''Spiral Jetty'' by

and her friendship with the science-fiction writer

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass med ...

. During the film, the viewer also hears excerpts from the writings and correspondence of Ballard as well as of Smithson, all read by actor Jim Broadbent.

Photography and painting

In 2001 Dean published ''Floh'', a book in two parts that used found photographs from the flea markets of Europe and America."Floh"
Retrieved 11 April 2014. Dean said of ''Floh'': "I do not want to give these images explanations: descriptions by the finder about how and where they were found, or guesses as to what stories they might or might not tell. I want them to keep the silence of the fleamarket; the silence they had when I found them; the silence of the lost object." Similarly, in 2002 Dean created ''Czech Photos'' (1991-2002), a series of over 326 unedited photographs presented in a box for intimate engagement. The black and white photographs show a city in the moments before radical change, already somehow out of date the second they were taken. ''Washington Cathedral'' (2002) is a series of more than 130 found postcards from the first half of the last century showing various imagined versions of the cathedral in Washington, DC before it was completed. ''Palindrome'' is a newspaper project celebrating the palindromic date 20.02 2002, which was inspired by numbers painted by

Marcel Broodthaers Marcel Broodthaers (28 January 1924 – 28 January 1976) was a Belgian poet, filmmaker, and visual artist with a highly literate and often witty approach to creating art works. In 1943-1951 he was a member of a Communist party. Life and career ...

on a beam in his studio. In 2005, Dean began work on a series of found postcards of trees, which she transformed by painting out all the background detail with white gouache.

Commissions

Dean has undertaken commissions for London's former Millennium Dome, the Sadler's Wells Theatre, and for Cork,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, as part of that city's European City of Culture celebrations. She has also completed residencies at the

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers fr ...

, the

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art". The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limite ...

, Columbus,

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

In 2011, Dean was the 12th artist commissioned by the Unilever Series to create a unique artwork for the Turbine Hall of the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

. The result, ''FILM'', was an 11-minute silent film shot on 35 mm film that was projected onto a 13-meter screen and sought "not only to invigorate debate about the threat film is under but also to stand as a testament to the distinctive qualities of this unique medium."

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions

*''Tacita Dean and Gerco de Ruijter'', Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art,

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

(1997) *''Tacita Dean'',

Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia The Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA is a contemporary art museum in Philadelphia. The museum is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, and is located on its campus. The Institute is one of the country's leading museums dedicated to e ...

, (1998) *''Tacita Dean'', Museum De Pont, Tilburg, (1998) *''Tacita Dean'',

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. MMoCA is dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving modern and co ...

, Madison, WI, (1999) *Museum für Gegenwartskunst,

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

(2000) *''Tacita Dean,'' MACBA,

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

(2001) *''Tacita Dean: Recent Films and Other Works'',

(2001) *''Tacita Dean'',

Tate St Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture ...

(2005) *''Tacita Dean. Analogue: Films, Photographs, Drawings 1991–2006'', Schaulager, Basel (2006). The most comprehensive retrospective of her work to date, ''Analogue'', held at Schaulager Basel. *''Hugo Boss Prize 2006: Tacita Dean'',

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

, (2006) *''Still Life'', Palazzo Dugnani, Nicola Trussardi Foundation, Milan (2009). Dean's first major solo exhibition in Italy, on the first floor (piano nobile) of Palazzo Dugnani, a historic building in the centre of Milan. A selection of fourteen works, including the world premiere of two films commissioned and produced by the Foundation: ''Still Life'' and ''Day for Night'', filmed in the Bolognese studio of painter

Giorgio Morandi Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 – June 18, 1964) was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bo ...

. *''... my English breath in foreign clouds.'' Tacita Dean, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York City (2016). *''Tacita Dean: Woman with a Red Hat'', The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2018). *''Tacita Dean: Still Life'',

The National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director of ...

, London (2018). *''Tacita Dean: Portrait'', National Portrait Gallery, London (2018). *''Tacita Dean: Landscape'', Royal Academy of Arts, London (2018).

Group exhibitions and exhibitions during festivals

* São Paulo Art Biennial (2006; 2010) *

(2003; 2005; 2013) * dOCUMENTA (13)

Recognition

Following her 1996 film ''Disappearance at Sea'', Dean was nominated for the

in 1998. She has since been awarded the Aachen Art Prize (2002), Hugo Boss Prize (2006), and the Kurt Schwitters Prize (2009), among others. In 2011, Blake Gopnik listed Dean among "The 10 Most Important Artists of Today". She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to British art overseas. Dean was the recipient of the 2019 TenTen artist commission, and the 2019

Cherry Kearton Medal and Award The Cherry Kearton Medal and Award is an honour bestowed by the Royal Geographical Society on "a traveller concerned with the study or practice of natural history, with a preference for those with an interest in nature photography, art or cinemato ...

Filmography

References

External links

Stillness. Una Danza para la Quietud: Cage, Cunningham, DeanTacita Dean in the Tate Collection
– artist biography and works
Tacita Dean: Film
– exhibition at

2011–2012
Tacita Dean – Aerial View of Teignmouth Electron, Cayman Brac. 16 September 1998Waterlog
exhibition featuring ''Michael Hamburger'' (2007) (requires Flash Player)
Tacita Dean at Fondazione Nicola TrussardiWorks by Tacita Dean in Cal Cego. Contemporary Art Collection
*Tacita Dea
works
at the

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dean, Tacita 1965 births Living people 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists Alumni of Falmouth University Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British conceptual artists English contemporary artists English experimental filmmakers Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin People educated at Kent College People from Canterbury Royal Academicians Women conceptual artists Women experimental filmmakers