10/10/2011
Tacita Dean
Tate Modern, London
The Unilever Series. Dean will be making a new commission especially designed to respond to the architecture of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Many of her works show the ways in which architecture can be transformed by the camera's lens. Dean's films act as portraits or depictions rather than conventional cinematic storytelling, capturing fleeting natural light or subtle shifts in movement.
Tacita Dean will be the next artist to create a commission for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall as part of the Unilever Series.
Tacita Dean is a British artist now based in Berlin, best known for her use of film. Dean’s films act as portraits or depictions rather than conventional cinematic storytelling, capturing fleeting natural light or subtle shifts in movement. Her static camera positions and long takes allow events to unfold unhurriedly. Other works have attempted to reconstruct events from memory, such as an infamous thwarted attempt to circumnavigate the world.
Dean’s interest in the cinematic also extends to her work in other media. The Russian Ending 2001 borrows its title from the early Danish cinema tradition of making two alternate endings for a film: one happy for the American market and one tragic for the Russian market. In this work, Dean annotated postcards of catastrophes with director's notes.
Many of Dean’s works show the ways in which architecture can be transformed by the camera's lens. Craneway Event 2009 follows the choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) and his dance company rehearsing in a former Ford assembly plant, built of glass and steel and overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Dean’s film allows the ever-changing light of this environment to fall in rhythm with the dancers’ movements.
Dean will be making a new commission especially designed to respond to the architecture of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The Unilever Series has become renowned as one of the most exciting and impressive contemporary art exhibitions in London each year and will be free to view.
The Unilever Series: an annual art commission sponsored by Unilever
Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, site of The Unilever Series © Tate
Press contact:
Daisy Mallabar Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8731 Email: daisy.mallabar@tate.org.uk
Kate Moores Tel: + 44 (0)20 7887 8730 Email: kate.moores@tate.org.uk
Tate Modern
Bankside London SE1 9TG
Hours
Sunday to Thursday, 10.00–18.00. Friday and Saturday, 10.00–22.00. Last admission into exhibitions 17.15 (Friday and Saturday 21.15).
Closed 24, 25 and 26 December
Closing at 18.00 on 31 December (open as normal on 1 January).
Free Entry