Tacita Dean, the obsession with drawing, from film to opera

2023-06-04 14:35:46

Tacita Dean, «The Wreck of Hope»2022, one of his huge chalk drawings exhibited at the Bourse de Commerce. © courtesy Tacita Dean and Pinault Collection, photo Florent Michel

INTERVIEW – The British artist who enchanted Documenta in 2012 in Kassel with her mountains, creates striking frescoes that she staged at the Opéra Garnier in “The Dante Project”. With filmmaker Christopher Nolan, she defends film against digital.

At the heart of the Rotonde de la Bourse de Commerce, it’s more than a film, it’s almost the reinvention of the cinematograph. The film, which takes place in two stages, rotates on the curved wall and projects the screens in pairs, like two parallel stories in which other images, other stories are nestled. There is something old like primitive photography and something new at the same time in this process that is both artisanal and spectacular. It’s not really a coincidence.

In the curved gallery of the Bourse de Commerce, a series of monumental drawings recount the seasons, from black winter to the pink of sakura (cherry blossoms in Japan), the stages of life and fading memories. The whole universe, ultra-sensitive and delicate, of Tacita Dean, drawing and film artist, refers to the mythological art of storytelling where every detail is important.

“I didn’t want a cube. So I imagined a circular pavilion and did what I had never done, a film that moves in the shadow of the world, this world that surrounds it precisely.said Tacita Dean. © courtesy Tacita Dean and Bourse de Commerce

It is by sharing a english breakfast tea with milk in the office of Emma Lavigne, Executive Director of the Collection…

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