Tacita Dean plays with chance at the Menil Collection

Tacita Dean will have her first major museum survey in the US at the Menil Collection in Houston. The exhibition, titled Tacita Dean: Blind Folly, was organized in close collaboration with Dean and primarily focuses on her monumental blackboard drawings while also featuring her drawings on paper, found postcards and albumen photographs. Included among these works are new creations which were inspired by the time she spent as a resident artist in Houston. A separate gallery is displaying a rotating group of her 16mm films.

The drawings on display at the Menil Collection were executed by Dean in a variety of media: found painted slate, gouache, paper, film, etc; but they are bound by her unique approach to these media, wherein she allows them to predetermine the results of her work. By allowing chance to influence the drawing process in an unmediated outpouring of creativity, Dean's drawings reflect her fixation with time – a fixation which she shares with the artist Cy Twombly, who she admires greatly and met in 2007.

Apart from her drawings, the Menil Collection is also screening a selection of 16mm films by Dean. The films Green Ray (2001), The Friar's Doodle (2009), Edwin Parker (2011) and Claes Oldenburg draws Blueberry Pie (2023) are screened consecutively throughout the duration of exhibition. This selection presents a comprehensive view of her cinematic oeuvre, further revealing her multifaceted practice.

Tacita Dean is a British visual artist and filmmaker who lives and works between Los Angeles and Berlin. She works in a variety of media, but has always nurtured a particular affinity for analogue film, seeking to convey a sense of time, place, history and light quality that reflects the essence of the medium. Tacita Dean: Blind Folly is on view at the Menil Collection through April 19, 2025. To learn more about this exhibition and the screening schedule for Dean's films, check the Menil Collection site.