Regarded as one of the most admired living artists of today, Tacita Dean is best known for her work with analogue film, in which she draws connections between the past and the present, reflecting the materiality and history of filmmaking. This summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art is exhibiting the largest presentation of the British-European artist's work ever seen in the southern hemisphere, with many works being shown for the first time here in Australia.
Psst! For one day only on Wednesday, January 31, the MCA is offering free public entry to the Tacita Dean exhibition (normally $25 per adult) thanks to the Museum's major partner Telstra. No bookings required! Our hot tip is to join the 45-minute guided tour at 11am – it's also free, and no need to book either.
The exhibition highlights works created by Dean in the last five years, including monumental chalkboard drawings, a sensuous photographic and print series, and immersive film installations – with some 3.5 hours of film displayed between various projects.
Based in Berlin and Los Angeles, Dean is renowned for her singular poetic vision and distinctive body of works encompassing film, photography and drawing, which she brings together as multi-sensorial installations.
Flowing through the MCA’s expansive Level 3 Gallery, the major exhibition has a more understated feel compared to the museum’s previous summer blockbusters, and indeed the other two Sydney International Art Series shows at the Art Gallery of NSW (which showcase the work of Vasily Kandinsky and Louise Bourgeois).
Photograph: MCA/Zan Wimberley
Dean’s works are distinguished by a meticulous attention to detail that encourages slow and careful observation of the surrounding world. As you wander through the exhibition, bright hallways lined with soft prints of cloud formations give way to dark nooks where experimental films are playing. The mechanical hum of film projectors underscores the experience. The central room is overlooked by two gigantic blackboard drawings, including the newly completed ‘The Wreck of Hope (2022)’, depicting a melting ice-cap disappearing into the darkness of an abyss. (Don’t lean in too close to these fragile chalk works, lest you hear the bellow of the alarm of the “tsk tsk” of a gallery attendant.)
Another recent work comes from Dean’s ongoing acclaimed series of film portraits, ‘One Hundred and Fifty Years of Painting (2021)’ – a filmed conversation between the painters Luchita Hurtado and Julie Mehretu. Realising that the two artists, who share a birthday fifty years apart, would collectively turn 100 and 50 years-old in 2020, Dean filmed them in conversation in Hurtado’s apartment in Santa Monica in the first days of 2020.
The exhibition also includes multi-media works from the artist’s designs for the ballet The Dante Project (2021), a collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and composer Thomas Adès for The Royal Ballet; and ‘Geography Biography (2023)’ a monumental film installation commissioned by the Pinault Collection for the Bourse de Commerce, Paris.
Our insider tip is to join one of the 45-minute guided tours of the exhibition. The knowledgeable guides are able to share so much insight about the elaborate, time-intensive work that has gone into each artwork, as well as Tacita Dean's admirable work in preserving film as a medium for artmaking. (The tours are free with your ticket and there's no need to book. You can check the times over here.)
Tacita Dean is showing at the MCA Sydney from Dec 8, 2023 - Mar 3, 2024. Tickets are $25 for adults, $18 for concessions, and free for youth (ages 13-17) and children (12 and under). You can save by purchasing an Art Pass for all three exhibitions in the Sydney International Art Series. Find out more and buy tickets here.