![\"Tacita](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Tacita-Dean-.jpg\")
Left: Presentation Windows, 2005. Courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton. Photo: Louis Vuitton and Christian Kain. Right: The Book End of Time, 2013, artists collection.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Left: Presentation Windows, 2005. Courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton. Photo: Louis Vuitton and Christian Kain. Right: The Book End of Time, 2013, artists collection.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n “I’m championing 16mm film… its obsolescence has been caused by labelling it a technology. To me it’s a medium”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “You can imagine what I thought about Brexit… I can\u2019t begin to tell you. I am filing for German citizenship right now”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n British artist Tacita Dean talks Brexit, the transience of everyday life and why film is the perfect vehicle for her ideas<\/p>","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":42401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[38,39,34,6942,4821,6943,6944,212,6945,6946,3308,971],"class_list":["post-41439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-based","tag-brexit","tag-british-artist","tag-fondation-louis-vuitton","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-maria-fernanda-molins","tag-marian-goodman-gallery","tag-rachael-vance","tag-tacita-dean"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n
\nAs she prepared for her forthcoming retrospective at Mexico City\u2019s Museo Tamayo, SLEEK called Tacita Dean<\/a> 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<\/a> as a YBA<\/a>. Since then she\u2019s made films about Berlin\u2019s TV tower (\u201cFernsehturm\u201d, 2000), published a photobook about European flea markets (\u201cFloh\u201d 2001) and explored her friendship with the science fiction writer J.G. Ballard on film (\u201cJG\u201d, 2013). One of the UK\u2019s biggest artists, her Mexico show probes materiality and intangibility \u2013 concepts intrinsic to her work \u2013 while conveying the sheer magic of her images. And with an exhibition entitled \u201cBeyond the Walls\u201d currently on view at Espace Louis Vuitton in Munich, it felt like a good time to catch up with the artist.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Tacita](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Tacita-Dean1.jpg\")
Left: Portrait courtesy of Maria Fernanda Molins. Right: H\u00fcnengrab, 2008, copyright the artist, courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton. Photo: Louis Vuitton and Christian Kain.<\/p>\n
\nDid you have a particular aim for your show in Mexico?
\n<\/strong>The exhibition is an opportunity for me to present different works together in different groupings never seen before. I\u2019m 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.
\nWhat\u2019s its starting point?
\n<\/strong>It begins with my immensely fragile clover collection presented alongside \u201cConcordance of Fifty American Cloud\u201d (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 \u201cA Bag of Air\u201d (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 \u201cThe Green Ray\u201d (2001) and \u201c10 to the 21\u201d (2014). The latter of these is actually very pertinent to a laser that\u2019s being developed: it travels so fast that it\u2019s impossible to capture the impact of its light as it reaches it’s target [Currently being researched by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory].
\nThese two works seem to capture the “uncapturable” \u2013 somewhat of a theme in the latter part of the show. <\/strong> \nYes, the last part in the exhibition is exciting for me as I am bringing older works together that I call \u201cMetamorphic Objects\u201d. It begins with my film of Claes Oldenburg, \u201cManhattan Mouse Museum\u201d (2011), alongside an old film project about Super 8 that I have transferred to 16 mm film called \u201cPurple Steering Wheel\u201d (2016). It\u2019s 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 \u201cPortraits\u201d (2016), my film of David Hockney<\/a> smoking cigarettes on the museum\u2019s smoking terrace, turning it into a smoking cinema. Hockney had a show here in 1984.
\n <\/p>\n
\nYou once said that your film work presents the \u201cact of looking itself \u201d. Can you elaborate?<\/strong> \nFilm is very much a medium for looking: it\u2019s 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,\u00a0because you have to worry about the focus, the light or that fact your film\u2019s\u00a0going to run out.
\nYour films have a beautiful sense of slowness, allowing the viewer to luxuriate in them.<\/strong> \nSomehow 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.
\nYou 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?<\/strong> \nThere was a quote that I have always liked by the writer Rupert Thomson, \u201cHome is somewhere you find by chance.\u201d 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\u2019t begin to tell you. I am filing for German citizenship right now. I\u2019m a British artist, but I\u2019m very much a European too, and I don\u2019t 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.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Tacita](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Tacita-Dean2.jpg\")
People Steering Wheel, 2016. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York\/Paris.<\/p>\n
\n“Tacita Dean<\/a>”\u00a0is on display at Mexico City’s Museo Tamayo\u00a0until 12\u00a0March 2017<\/strong> \n“Beyond the Walls<\/a>” is on display at Munich’s Espace Louis Vuitton Munich until\u00a025\u00a0March 2017<\/strong> \nTaken from SLEEK 52<\/a><\/strong> \n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"