calendario eventi  :: 

X

19/11/2009

Tacita Dean

Sprengel Museum, Hannover

Curated by Ulrich Krempel and Isabelle Schwarz

This year’s Kurt Schwitters Prize for Visual Art has been awarded by the Lower Saxony Savings Bank Foundation to Tacita Dean. Born in Canterbury, 1965, this British artist now lives and works in Berlin. The award pays tribute to an artist who is internationally-renowned and whose art is “carried by a sense of history, time and place, the quality of light and the essence of film itself” (to quote the jury).

To mark the occasion, the Sprengel Museum Hannover proudly presents the German premiere of the artist’s six film installation Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS (in three movements) to John Cage's composition 4'33" with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films), 2008, and the European premiere of her new film, Craneway Event, 2009. For Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS, Tacita Dean asked the legendary choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009) if he would perform himself to John Cage’s silent composition 4’ 33”. He gave this new performance and choreography the name, STILLNESS.

Each of the six performances is filmed in a different way and shows the American dancer seated in his Manhattan dance studio, holding his position for the three movements of Cage’s composition. The minimal scene is only interrupted when Trevor Carlson, director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, signals the end of each movement with his hand. Cunningham’s image is always projected life-size and the six screens sit on the floor emanating, as closely as possible, his actual presence in the installation. In 4’33”, John Cage interpreted fortuitous sounds as music and explored the phenomenon of silence. It was first performed in 1952. Tacita Dean’s six-part installation was first shown at Dia:Beacon in upstate New York in 2008.

Craneway Event has sadly become the last film ever to be made with and about Merce Cunningham. Filmed in November 2008 in a former Ford factory in Richmond, California, Dean shows Cunningham rehearsing with his dancers in preparation for an event. The plant was designed in 1930 by Albert Kahn with continuous glass to maximise daylight working hours, Tankers pass, pelicans swoop low and the continually shifting light become a stunning backdrop for the human activity inside.

The Lower Saxony Savings Bank Foundation has been awarding the Kurt Schwitters Prize since 1996. It is awarded to artists of international standing whose work is not only of outstanding significance but also exercises a lasting influence on the art of the present day, and especially to those artists whose works in some way relate to the artist Kurt Schwitters, who was a native of Hanover (1887-1948), or who work in entirely new fields of art or have made an essential contribution to the interaction and integration of different artistic disciplines.

The decision to award the 2009 Kurt Schwitters Prize to Tacita Dean was based on the recommendation of an international jury comprising Prof. Dr. Ulrich Krempel (Chairman), Director of the Sprengel Museum Hannover, Prof. Dr. Beatrice von Bismarck, Vice-Chancellor of the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, Hendrick Driessen, Director of the De Pont museum voor hedendaagse kunst (Tilburg, Netherlands), Dr. Fabrice Hergott, Director of the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Adrian Searle, Art Critic of The Guardian, London, and Prof. Thomas Wagner, Art Critic (Frankfurt am Main).

Previous award winners include: Raymond Hains (1996), Thomas Schütte (1998), Gary Hill (2000), James Coleman (2002), Joep van Lieshout (Atelier Van Lieshout) (2004) and Rodney Graham (2006).

Tacita Dean today lives and works in Berlin. Her impressively varied oeuvre comprises films, drawings, photographs, audio recordings and installations. The works of Tacita Dean have been shown in international solo and group exhibitions since 1992. The artist’s most recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan; ACCA, Melbourne (2009), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (Hugo Boss Prize Exhibition); Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (2007) and Schaulager, Basel (2006)

Press contact Goetz-Lothar Darsow
Tel. +49 (0)511 168 4 39 24 e-mail: presse.smh@hannover-stadt.de

Press preview and press conference 20th November 2009, 11 a.m.
Opening and award ceremony 22nd November 2009, 11.15 a.m.

Sprengel Museum
Kurt Schwitters Platz, Hannover
Opening times Tues 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., Wed to Sun 10 a.m. – 6 p.m
closed Mondays

stampa

permanent link