As part of the Sydney International Art Series, the largest Southern Hemisphere presentation of the acclaimed British artist Tacita Dean is currently on display at the MCA Australia.
This Sydney-exclusive exhibition brings together key works that capture Dean’s investigations into themes of chance, memory, entropy, history and time.
Tacita Dean, Paradise (film still), 2021, with music, Paradiso by Thomas Adès, 35mm colour anamorphic film, optical sound, image courtesy the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery New York, Paris and Los Angeles, © the artist
It includes new and recent 16mm and 35mm film works, monumental chalkboard drawings, photographic and print series, and works that have resulted from the artist’s set design for the highly acclaimed The Dante Project, a collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and composer Thomas Adès for The Royal Ballet.
Tacita Dean, LA Magic Hour, 2021, Installation view, Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, 2022, 15 hand-drawn, multi-colour blend lithographs, published by Gemini G.E.L., image courtesy the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and Los Angeles © the artist
Exhibited together for the first time are Dean’s monumental chalk on blackboard drawings, The Wreck of Hope (2022) and Chalk Fall (2018). Dean’s use of chalk—an unfixed medium—mirrors the fragility of the landscapes she portrays, which are increasingly threatened by our climate emergency. Depicting a glacier melting, The Wreck of Hope, takes its title from a famous painting of the same name by the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich (b. 1774–d. 1840). The majestic cliff subsiding in Chalk Fall was motivated by Dean’s desire to use chalk to depict chalk collapse in relation to medium extinction and her ongoing struggle to keep photochemical film viable. For the artist, it also resonates with the iconic chalk White Cliffs of Dover and the impact of Brexit.
Tacita Dean, Inferno (detail), 2021, 8 photogravures with screenprint on Somerset, published by BORCH Editions, image courtesy the artist and BORCH Editions © the artist
Featuring important bodies of work not previously seen in Australia, the exhibition includes new and recent film works, monumental chalkboard drawings, and photographic and print series. Among the exhibition highlights are the major new film installation, Geography Biography (2023), Dean’s most biographical work to date; and the artist’s most recent film, Claes Oldenburg draws Blueberry Pie (2023), featuring the American Pop artist Claes Oldenburg drawing in his Manhattan studio.
The exhibition runs until March 3 2024.
Header: Tacita Dean, The Wreck of Hope, 2022. Chalk on blackboard. Installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2023. Courtesy of the artist, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and Los Angeles. © the artist. Photo: Zan Wimberley.
