Tacita Dean's exhibition, Landscape at The Royal Academy of Arts.

I enjoy working at night, it's the only time when it's quiet. That's what I felt while going to Tacita Dean's exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Her work is grounded in nature, it slows you down, it removes you from the hectic life outside. In the first room there were her works on slabs of charcoal that make you think of the combination of light and air, but also of the material itself, and of earth. Her exhibition, Landscape at the Royal Academy, is part of a three part exhibition of her work. The  other two works are: Still Life at the National Gallery and Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. I have not seen the other two exhibitions so I cannot comment on them. I will just focus on the one at the Royal Academy. The earth is present in it's physicality, both in the chalk drawings and also as found objects,  stones which are displayed in a cabinet. 

Antigone by Tacita Dean photo courtesy of the Guardian.

There is also a new 35 mm film which shows that she continues to be  a supporter of analogue film. This film is  entitled Antigone. It is presented  in split screen mode giving multiple view points,  it's nearly an hour long,  and the film is edited in the camera itself. We see a man walking in nature with a stick,  and close ups of  volcanic points in Yellowstone National Park see pic above; all is peaceful. We move from Wyoming to the town of Thebes in Illinois and to the first courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced. The movie and the work in the exhibition force you to slow down, they make you think of romanticism and the sublime. Dillane, the man with the stick, represents Oedipus in Greek mythology who killed his father and married his own mother, Jocasta. They will have four children together including Antigone his daughter. Oedipus became King of Thebes and after Jocasta killed herself he blinded himself and left his city. In the film he seems to walk across land with no aim while wearing a pair of glasses, despite the fact that he is blind. Meanwhile in the other section of the film Ann Curson discusses aspects of Greek mythology.

Antigone By Tacita Dean courtesy of Pinterest

I didn't paticularly identify with Dillane as Oedipus; rather than tragedy he actually made me think of the romantic walker who walks on his own as represented in Rousseau's the Reveries Of The Solitary Walker and also in Thoreau's Walden, this romanticised view of wondering or living in direct contact with nature. The close ups of the volcanic points force you to slow down as they are filmed in slow motion,  The images are meditative and grounded see pic above, they clash with the story of Oedipus & Antigone (which is also the name of Tacita Dean's elder sister). The film is not just about the story but also about light: dying light, the first glimmers of light, the eclipsed sun. Sometimes we are in several places at once, the two films overlap.

Montafon Letter by Tacita Dean photo courtesy of Pinterest

The first room is dominated by snowy mountain peaks, one of which takes over the main room due to its vastness. It made me think of Monet's work the Water Lilies which I saw in Paris a while back. Tacita Dean with the snowy mountains has made her own version, it is more minimalist and austere and was created using traditional chalk and blackboards; it is labour intensive work. Entitled Montafon Letter see pic above, the picture of the mountain peak refers to an avalanche that burried a village in the Austrian Alps in 1689. A second avalanche apparently burried the priest and a third avalanche uncovered him. Here is nature, the mountain, seen as sublime but also powerful and unpredictable, the essence of danger. It is composed of nine blackboards, joined together and more than seven metres wide. Hidden in its surface are  written notes and apparently these are about Brexit. The blackboards are not fixed with fixative as it is usually done when using chalk.

There is also a series of smaller chalk pencil drawings to accompany the main work. So we have earth, clouds, stones and light all together. The work is not based on one place but shows Tacita Dean's extensive travels from Cornwall to the USA. She observes nature, the changing weather, and her ongoing relationship with nature, places, and people she encountered. At the same time she looks at the past and our relationship with history, in particular the history of painting.

Work by Tacita Dean photo courtesy of Pinterest 

In the second room are lots of tiny leaves, inside a glass case; these come together to form a landscape see pic above. They were collected from 1972 which means she started collecting them when she was seven years old. In the exhibition there are also smaller slates and chalk drawings of clouds see pic below; chalk here is sprayed and there are inscriptions such as Where England?  These are materials mined from the land, possibly referencing the Victorian period of the Royal Academy, as in Victorian times they used slates with chalk in schools.

Work by Tacita Dean photo courtesy of Pinterest