Tacita Dean on Film

. . . This is a beautiful medium. 

It is a different medium.

Let's keep it.

~ Tacita Dean

Tate Modern in London currently is presenting in its huge Turbine Hall Tacita Dean's Unilever-commissioned work Film, a silent homage to 35mm film that, Dean says, "in the end [is] a bit more like a poem than a piece of prose." In this wonderful 11-minute video, the Berlin-based Dean talks about creating her dramatic installation for the Tate, noting that at a time when everything has gone digital, an argument still can be made for working with film and showing what it can do. 

The video also can be viewed here.

The exhibition at Tate Modern continues through March 11, 2012. A book, Film: Tacita Dean (Tate Publishing, October 2011), comprising a collection of statements about the importance of film and analogue and brief essays from artists, actors, archivists, cinematographers, film directors and historians, filmmakers, and others, accompanies the solo exhibition.

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Eight Installation Photos of Film

Charlotte Higgins, "Tacita Dean's Turbine Hall Film Pays Homage to a Dying Medium", The Guardian, October 10, 2011

Sarah Kent, "Tacita Dean: FILM, Tate Modern", The Arts Desk, October 12, 2011 (This is an excellent article about the commission and includes still images from Film.)

Tim Masters, "Tacita Dean Transforms Tate Modern Into Cinema", BBC News, October 10, 2011

Adrian Searle, "Tacita Dean: Film - Review",  The Guardian, October 10, 2011 (Searle's review explains the installation and how its use in Turbine Hall serves as "a rejoinder to the digital noise of the modern world.") 

"Tacita Dean Turns Tate Modern Into a Cinema", BBC, October 10, 2011 (This includes a brief video interview with the artist.)

Jackie Wullschlager, "The Unilever Series: Tacita Dean, Tate Modern", Financial Times, October 11, 2011

Video of Film from VernissageTV

Also Of Interest

The Unilever Series at Tate Modern

Tacita Dean, "Save Celluloid, for Art's Sake", The Guardian, February 22, 2011 (In this article, Dean talks about her shock on learning that Soho Film Lab would cease production of the 16mm film she originally had intended to use for her Tate commission.)

Jeffrey Eugenides, "Tacita Dean", BOMB Magazine, Spring 2006 (Interview)

Simon Schama, "Tacita Dean Talks to Simon Schama", FT Magazine, September 30, 2011

"Art Now: Tacita Dean: Foley Artist" (Exhibition at Tate in 1996)

Dean is represented by Frith Street Gallery in London and Marian Goodman Gallery in New York City and Paris.