Premium
LACK OF FIT: TACITA DEAN, MODERNISM AND THE SCULPTURAL FILM
Author(s) -
TRODD TAMARA
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2008.00611.x
Subject(s) - witness , modernism (music) , art , art history , object (grammar) , projection (relational algebra) , space (punctuation) , visual arts , philosophy , computer science , artificial intelligence , linguistics , algorithm
In this paper I examine the continuing legacies of the ‘sculptural film’ for contemporary projected‐image work, and consider what is at stake in the shift to which it bears witness, from the material object as model for film, to an explicit – if frequently ruined and derelict – space of projection. The importance of this history is examined through discussion of recent projected‐image work by Tacita Dean, notable because in almost every case it is explicitly structured around the camera's exploration of some found physical structure. Modernist uses of the sculptural film – represented, in different ways, in works by László Moholy‐Nagy and Richard Serra – are importantly transformed in Dean's work, which draws also on Robert Smithson's earlier reconfiguration of the sculptural and the filmic.