Tacita Dean, "Michael Hamburger (2007), at Marian Goodman Gallery.
The work in Tacita Dean’s current show at Marian Goodman gallery, which includes her recent 16mm films and painted photographs, revolves around the subject of Germany. Dean moved to Berlin in 2000 after receiving a DAAD (Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme) scholarship. After a year she decided to stay, something quite common among DAAD artists. Last week, Dean kindly endured a Skype-d conversation with Whitewall to discuss the show currently up through April 30, 2009.
WHITEWALL: “Darmstädter Werkblock” is filmed in Joseph Beuys’s installation at Darmstadt’s Hessiches Landesmuseum, which will be renovated. Is your film a tender tribute to the installation?
TACITA DEAN: Joseph Beuys’s made the installation in 7 rooms. He did seven rooms and they all have jute on the wall. They want to change it and paint the walls white and remove the carpet on the floor. When I went there my intention was to document the whole installation. The whole argument for the removal of the jute is that Joseph Beuys never made mention of the walls. The whole point about the walls is they are lovingly patched. It doesn’t show neglect. In fact, it’s the opposite, it shows a loving maintenance. It’s also that they take on a resonance of art history too because at times they look like a found Rothko or Arte Povera. It’s a combination of the find as well as the intention. It’s a very special place.
WW: Why did you want to isolate the stones in the three over-painted photographs Urdolmen (2008), Hünengrab (2008), and Riesenbett (2009)? Was it to make the common uncommon?
TD: It was to make them sculptural objects and to confuse what they are. They do take on another form. Sometimes they look extra-terrestrial. They could come from outer space, like meteorites. I didn’t know how they would work so it was one of the things that came from it.
WW: How were you introduced to Michael Hamburger, the subject of Michael Hamburger (2007)?
TD: I found him because he appears in a chapter of W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. I was making a work for a project in East Anglia which was a commission to make something related to Sebald. And I remembered the chapter on Michael Hamburger.
I had a personal connection to him and I was told he had an orchard. When I filmed him I filmed quite a lot and I talked to him about Sebald and all sorts of other things but in the end I made my film just about apples. It was in cutting the film that I realized it was the most important thing and through apples he talked about everything else as a metaphor.
My work is about traces and capturing things before they disappear
WW: Your work references painting and photography. The North Gallery manipulates photographs, whether found, damaged, or painted over. In the South Gallery your films have a painterly quality. The composition is carefully thought out in each shot and many linger. Do you see film as a place where you can better play with these other mediums?
TD: I don’t come from a cinema tradition at all, I come from a painting tradition. I never had a cinema lesson in my life. My films are more connected to painting than cinema. My world is the world of art and not cinematic art. That for me is why they are so referential to painting. Not that it was ever deliberate but that’s how I started to make them.
WW: This show also directly engages with artists, photographers, and poets. Do you see your work as an appropriation, commentary, engagement, or just referential?
TD: I don’t think it’s in any way to do with appropriation. Painted Kotzsch Trees (2009) are the closest to what you would call appropriation. They’re damaged because they were always damaged because of the albumen. I like the damage as much as I like the motif so I painted around the tree and the damage. I would never think of it as appropriation, I’m not appropriating his art. For me those are just adding, in a way, not taking.
In referential terms, yes, this is a show about the subject of Germany so everything has come from a different place. My work has become about traces and capturing things before they disappear. It’s all about the recording of an atmosphere and usually it’s transient in a sort of way.
Tacita Dean "Riesenbett" (2009).
