Head in the clouds: Tacita Dean looks to LA’s skies for her latest body of work
In the fall of 2014, British artist Tacita Dean moved to Los Angeles for a residency at the Getty Center. Ever since, she's been working on a book project about the importance of objective chance (the Bretonian surrealist idea of chance objectif, or allowing chance to guide you) under the California sun. While she hasn't pinned down the visual narrative to the book just yet, she did start a compelling new series of cloud paintings.
‘I'm European and I like clouds, but they're not LA clouds and the idea about LA is that there are no clouds. Even people who live there say there are no clouds,’ explains Dean over tea at the preview for her latest solo show, '... my English breath in foreign clouds', at Marian Goodman in New York. ‘I say to them, "How can you say there are no clouds? Every day there are clouds, the most amazing clouds." [Once] I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and I saw the cloud of clouds, and I took an iPhone picture while I was driving. It was completely on its own, just a brilliant blue sky and this unbelievable perfect cloud.'
The image led to ‘the most LA’ cloud paintings – made with blue chalkboard paint over her own photographs – intermingled with other works made with charcoal, spray chalk, white charcoal pencil and gouache on blackboards (a favoured material of Dean over the years), vintage Victorian-era school slates, and Gemini G.E.L. lithographs.
‘I had no idea what they'd be like, but they're more stylised than I imagined,’ says Dean. The cumulative effect of the new series, A Concordance of Fifty American Clouds – a reference to A Complete Concordance to Shakespeare (the exhibition's name is also taken from Richard II) – is an ethereal fourth floor dreamscape that provides a stark contrast to the blustery winter winds outside. It's punctuated by an eye-level horizon line created by found black and white postcards that also feature clouds and ‘totemic places’ for Dean, like LA's Fox Theater or the old Wilshire May Company building, which is currently being renovated by Renzo Piano for the Academy Museum on the LACMA campus.
Dean, who has been painting postcards for years, most notably in her dOCUMENTA 13 installation, which featured 100 postcards of Kassel, adds that these works differ from the norm. ‘They’re different now. They're personal.’
In an adjoining gallery, the artist is screening her 2014 film, Buon Fresco (a closer quarter examination of Giotto's frescoes), as well as a series of photographs taken in 2008, documenting the contents of Cy Twombly's studio in the Italian town of Gaeta. She's also screening her new 16-minute film, Portraits, that observes David Hockney smoking five cigarettes in his LA studio. ‘He's thinking about his paintings,’ says Dean, of the contemplative Hockney, as he meditatively takes drag after drag before the camera. ‘He paints, sits down, has a cigarette and figures out what to do next.’
It makes one wonder what a curious artist – perhaps one guided by objective chance – might document if given unfettered access to Dean in her LA studio.
INFORMATION
'... my English breath in Foreign Clouds' is on view until 23 April. For more details, please visit Marian Goodman's website
Photography courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman gallery
ADDRESS
Marian Goodman Gallery
24 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
Toyota bz4X SUV is the marque’s first pure electric vehicle
The Toyota bz4X is our first chance to explore how the long-standing masters of mass automobile production make an EV
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Ash Tree House offers a contextual approach to a north London site
Ash Tree House by Edgley Design is a modern family home in a north London conservation area's backyard site
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Inside Palazzo Versace Macau’s mosaic-rich extravaganza
Palazzo Versace Macau, the brand’s first hotel in Asia, continues to preserve Donatella Versace’s swanky hospitality vision
By Sofia de la Cruz Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published
-
New York artist Christopher Astley showcases an alternative natural world
At Martos Gallery in New York, Christopher Astley’s paintings evoke an alternative natural world and the chaos of warfare (until 16 March 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
The Whitney plots Harold Cohen’s artistic AI adventures
‘Harold Cohen: AARON’, at the Whitney Museum of American Art celebrates the artist’s software – the earliest AI program for artmaking – as an artwork in its own right
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Ludovic Nkoth’s vibrant paintings reflect on migration
Cameroon-born, New York-based Ludovic Nkoth uses acrylic paint to strike a balance between abstraction and figuration
By Ugonna-Ora Owoh Published