March 07, 2005
Tacita Dean
Tacita Dean creates elaborate connections where history intertwines with fiction and subtle coincidences of names or locations implode and multiply in meaning. These detours also function as starting points for other projects. In Dean's intricate universe, the space between works unfolds into a multilayered, almost never-ending narrative resonating around concepts of memory and time.
Dean discovered Bubble House, a ruin of an unfinished house, in Cayman Brac while researching for another project on Donald Crowhurst's boat, the Teignmouth Electron. The egg-shaped house by the ocean suggests the decaying set of a futuristic movie. Conceived by a Frenchman as a perfect home specifically designed to resist Caribbean hurricanes, the house became a wreck without ever being completed or inhabited; its owner was accused of fraud by the American government and convicted in Florida before he could finish it.
Its deteriorated state in the middle of the perfect and manicured landscape of the fiscal paradise is a source of shame to the islanders. Dean documented the house in a series of photographs and a film. Pairing the Bubble House with Crowhurst's decayed boat on the other end of the island, Dean creates a genealogy of deflated utopian architectures. The CinemaScope panoramic windows frame the landscape and serve as a perfect spot to wait for a storm.
Dean was born in England and is based in Berlin. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1990 to 1992. In 1998 she was among the finalists for the Turner Prize. She has had solo shows at De Pont Foundation, Tilburg (2004); ARC Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2003); and Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona (2001). Her work has been part of the group shows Reflecting the Mirror, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York (2004); Ritardi e Rivoluzioni and Utopia Station, Venice Biennale (2003); and the Yokohama International Triennial of Contemporary Art, Japan (2001).
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