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Tacita Dean (b. 1965) is a British visual artist.
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 16mm films, often employing long takes and steady camera angles to create a serene, melancholy, but compelling atmosphere. 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 Tacita Dean: Disappearance at Sea from the National Maritime Museum. 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 Denge feature in one film. In documenting these relics the artist also documents human aspirations and obsessions, set against human failings and disappointments.
Biography
Tacita Dean was born in 1965 in Canterbury, England. 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, 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).
Tacita Dean was nominated for 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
Film works
- The Story of Beard, 1992
- The Martyrdom of St Agatha (in several parts), 1994
- Girl Stowaway, 1994
- How to Put a Boat in a Bottle, 1995
- A Bag of Air, 1995
- Disappearance at Sea, 1996
- Delft Hydraulics, 1996
- Foley Artist, 1996
- Disappearance at Sea II, 1997
- The Structure of Ice, 1997
- Gellért, 1998
- Bubble House, 1999
- Sound Mirrors, 1999
- From Columbus, Ohio, to the Partially Buried Woodshed, 1999
- Banewl, 1999
- Teignmouth Electron, 2000
- Totality, 2000
- Fernsehrturm, 2001
References
- Frith Street Gallery, London
- Tacita Dean: Recent films and other works - Past exhibition at Tate Britain
External links
- Tacita Dean exhibition at Tate St Ives, UK, 2005
- Tacita Dean in the Tate Collection - artist biography and works viewable online
- Tacita Dean - Aerial View of Teignmouth Electron, Cayman Brac. 16th September 1998
"Tacita Dean"