Tacita Dean's Filmed Portraiture

In March 2018, London's National Portrait Gallery for the first time in its 160-year history featured an exhibition devoted to film. The exhibition included a series of filmed portraits displaying conceptual artist Tacita Dean’s fascination with age and the passage of time. Dean’s subjects are older men, drawn from a pool of great artists, poets and thinkers. Often captured in the comfort of familiar surroundings, they go about their daily business, or sit, quietly musing over their thoughts. In Portraits (2016) Dean captures David Hockney contemplatively smoking a cigarette whilst reflecting on his own work 1 . The medium of film provides Dean with the means to capture her subjects with true fidelity. She achieves a greater realism by allowing the sitter to move freely and to react naturally to their surroundings. By removing the artificial constraints of a conventional sitting, the subject becomes inclined towards their own thoughts and less attuned to the presence of the camera. She films her subject slowly and inconspicuously, gathering images at a steady, unhurried pace, allowing their character to emerge deliberately through the lens of the camera. Dean is an exceptionally meticulous observer of her environment. The patience and care she devotes to looking and seeing is reflected in her work and practice; both exhibiting a slow, steady and considered quality. Her exceptional commitment to the medium of film has been rewarded with an unprecedented solo exhibition at the home of British portraiture.

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