Tacita Dean

Hors les murs From 14 October 2016 to 25 March 2017

The Espace Louis Vuitton München continues its celebration of female artistic ingenuity in 2016 with a new monographic exhibition from the critically-acclaimed British artist, Tacita Dean, serving as the second edition of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s “Hors-les-murs” project in Munich. Conceived and produced under the artistic direction of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the “Hors-les-murs” exhibition programme introduces previously unseen artworks from its permanent collection to audiences of the Espaces culturels Louis Vuitton in Munich, Venezia, Beijing, and Tokyo, thus realizing its mission to curate ambitious international art projects and share its collection with a broader public.

Working in a diverse range of mediums, including film, photography, drawing, painting, sound installation, found objects, and prints, Tacita Dean’s practice commemorates the passing of time by documenting its imprints on natural elements, such as rocks and trees, and ageing bodies. Her detective-like interest in seemingly mundane moments results in works that are inquisitive, precise, and poetic. Her meditative response to the frantic technological changes of the modern age celebrates the fragility of human endeavour, the timeless context of nature, and traces of time left throughout history. Through her meticulous methodology, she instills a quiet depth in her works, where time is the major protagonist.

Dean is passionately attached to analogue modes of cinema (16mm) and photography (silver gelatin photographs and photogravure), finding in these a metaphor for the acute awareness of time that informs her work. In parallel to her practice in film and photography, she also produces chalk drawings on blackboards since the 1990s and paintings on postcards and photographs since 2005: all evolving from comparatively slow, complex processes.

Tacita Dean brings together five major works from the Fondation Louis Vuitton collection to illustrate the great diversity of the artist’s oeuvre during the last decade. At the same time, it provides a testimony to Dean’s unique and highly poetic artistic language, with which she plays in a virtuoso manner across all media.