Tacita Dean's Poetic Landscape Works

 Royal Academy  19 May — 12 August 2018

RA Exhibition Catalogue

The first of three rooms is filled with monochromatic land and cloudscapes. There is something here which makes you stop and draw breath. The power emanating from these paintings is a cause for transcendental meditation. Sitting with my back to Dean's site specific "The Montafon Letter" (2017)I can imagine the roaring, thunderous noise hammered by the avalanche onslaught. This grand, scenic panorama is disturbed by nature's violence. And yet, to the right of me, a shaft of sunlight penetrates the slate gloom, bathing me in a reflective quietude. "Where England" 2018 (spray chalk, gouache and charcoal pencil on slate) demands my attention. This small opening rendered in simplistic, gestural marks has all the power of its grandiose neighbour which fills the entire back wall. This little painting is the David to Montafon's Goliath. There are 12 slate paintings arranged on three sides of the gallery with careful curation of scale. Not all are hung on the eye line. Six pieces of various sized cloud-works scatter across one corner of the gallery wall and balanced by a larger triptych on eye level with a final painting set high. The direction of the clouds is echoed in the gallery arrangement, energising the movement created in Dean's exquisite works.  

The Montafon Letter (2017)
Tacita Dean

Tacita Dean's Cloudscape 

Detail of Round Stone Collection (ongoing)
Tacita Dean 

The display of Dean's thirty "Round Stone Collection" (ongoing) is expertly curated on a large square plinth with glass casing. The difference of each stone's size, colour and texture has been carefully chosen and set next to its neighbour in a contrasting but harmonious ratio. In simple terms it is the juxtaposition of the earth to the sky. The smallness of these stones has a marked contradistinction to the large "Majesty" earthbound tree.  

Majesty (2006)
Tacita Dean 

I sat for a long while reflecting on Dean's potent, emotional works. These temporal, complex landscapes are at once both familiar yet strange, causing shifts between reality and the imagination. Undoubtedly, the synergy Dean creates in this one room was sufficient to sustain my attention for the duration of the visit. I did not require anymore from Dean, this one room had plenty to say.