AS A MAJOR REVIEW OF HER WORK IN MEXICO GETS UNDERWAY, berlin-based BRITISH ARTIST TACITA DEAN TALKS BREXIT, THE TRANSIENCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE AND WHY FILM IS THE PERFECT VEHICLE FOR HER IDEAS
Left: Presentation Windows, 2005. Courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton. Photo: Louis Vuitton and Christian Kain. Right: The Book End of Time, 2013, artists collection.
As she prepared for her forthcoming retrospective at Mexico City’s Museo Tamayo, SLEEK called Tacita Dean to discuss the development of the exhibition from its inception two years ago. Including 79 works, the mammoth undertaking introduces audiences to a diversity of pieces from different moments of her career. For those unfamiliar, Dean first gained notoriety in the Nineties as a YBA. Since then she’s made films about Berlin’s TV tower (“Fernsehturm”, 2000), published a photobook about European flea markets (“Floh” 2001) and explored her friendship with the science fiction writer J.G. Ballard on film (“JG”, 2013). One of the UK’s biggest artists, her Mexico show probes materiality and intangibility – concepts intrinsic to her work – while conveying the sheer magic of her images. And with an exhibition entitled “Beyond the Walls” currently on view at Espace Louis Vuitton in Munich, it felt like a good time to catch up with the artist.
Left: Portrait courtesy of Maria Fernanda Molins. Right: Hünengrab, 2008, copyright the artist, courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton. Photo: Louis Vuitton and Christian Kain.
“I’m championing 16mm film… its obsolescence has been caused by labelling it a technology. To me it’s a medium”
Did you have a particular aim for your show in Mexico?
The exhibition is an opportunity for me to present different works together in different groupings never seen before. I’m also trying to champion 16mm film as a medium, which I think is very important, because its obsolescence has in part been caused by labelling it a technology. To me, film is a medium, not a technology. In this exhibition there are so many different mediums.
What’s its starting point?
It begins with my immensely fragile clover collection presented alongside “Concordance of Fifty American Cloud” (2016), a chalk, charcoal, pencil and gouache on slate work consisting of 50 clouds that I created for my 50th birthday. There are also painted photographs, blackboards, overpainted cards and lithographs. The first part is quite elemental. In the lower galleries, my film “A Bag of Air” (1995) is shown, which began in a quest to try and bring clouds down to earth. Then there are my salt salinated objects, from the JG project inspired by correspondence with the author, and I have also included the films “The Green Ray” (2001) and “10 to the 21” (2014). The latter of these is actually very pertinent to a laser that’s being developed: it travels so fast that it’s impossible to capture the impact of its light as it reaches it’s target [Currently being researched by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory].
These two works seem to capture the “uncapturable” – somewhat of a theme in the latter part of the show.
Yes, the last part in the exhibition is exciting for me as I am bringing older works together that I call “Metamorphic Objects”. It begins with my film of Claes Oldenburg, “Manhattan Mouse Museum” (2011), alongside an old film project about Super 8 that I have transferred to 16 mm film called “Purple Steering Wheel” (2016). It’s about sitting in a bus in Budapest watching a guy steer his purple steering wheel. It investigates the transient, everyday moment, which I think is very “Mexican” in terms of their relationship to the ephemeral. Very playfully, I am also showing “Portraits” (2016), my film of David Hockney smoking cigarettes on the museum’s smoking terrace, turning it into a smoking cinema. Hockney had a show here in 1984.
“You can imagine what I thought about Brexit… I can’t begin to tell you. I am filing for German citizenship right now”
You once said that your film work presents the “act of looking itself ”. Can you elaborate?
Film is very much a medium for looking: it’s decisive, as opposed to video, which of course is more passive. You can watch and observe something in a very passive way. But with film you always have to look as opposed to see, because you have to worry about the focus, the light or that fact your film’s going to run out.
Your films have a beautiful sense of slowness, allowing the viewer to luxuriate in them.
Somehow the medium itself engages people. Film is more restive than digital. It allows for subliminal darkness 24 times a second because it flickers, and I think that has a huge impact on how people perceive it. Film is a series of still images brought into movement: you see still image after still image, and it is so magical.
You have a studio in Berlin. As a British artist living in Germany, I wanted to ask you what your thoughts are on home in light of the Brexit?
There was a quote that I have always liked by the writer Rupert Thomson, “Home is somewhere you find by chance.” I always think that about Berlin. I had a DAAD residency here in 2000 and I never went back to Britain. You can imagine what I thought about Brexit. I am so upset about it I can’t begin to tell you. I am filing for German citizenship right now. I’m a British artist, but I’m very much a European too, and I don’t want to not be British anymore. What really upset me about the Brexit argument was that not a single positive word was said about Europe. I am ashamed of Britain and I think it is just awful.
People Steering Wheel, 2016. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris.
“Tacita Dean” is on display at Mexico City’s Museo Tamayo until 12 March 2017
“Beyond the Walls” is on display at Munich’s Espace Louis Vuitton Munich until 25 March 2017
Taken from SLEEK 52