Tacita Dean

Tacita Dean (b. 1965) is a British artist born in 1965 in Canterbury, England. She currently lives and works between Berlin and Los Angeles. In 2014–2015, she served as Artist in Residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Her work is often described by critic Adrian Searle as deeply infused with a sense of history, time, and place, along with a profound attention to light and the inherent qualities of film as a medium. Dean’s subtle yet ambitious practice centers on capturing the truth of a moment, exploring the unique properties of analog film, and expressing individual sensibility and perception.

She has received numerous prestigious honors, including being elected a 2025 National Academician by the National Academy of Design, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2024, the Cherry Kearton Medal and Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 2019, the Kurt Schwitters Prize in 2009, the Hugo Boss Prize at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2006, and the Sixth Benesse Prize at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005.

Dean has presented major solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Columbus Museum of Art, the Menil Collection in Houston (2024), the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris (2023), MUDAM in Luxembourg, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (2022), Kunstmuseum Basel (2021), EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art (2020), NY Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and Serralves Museum in Porto (both 2019), as well as Kunsthaus Bregenz, the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2018). The latter was part of a significant trilogy of exhibitions held simultaneously with London’s National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

In addition to her visual art practice, Dean designed the sets and costumes for The Dante Project, a collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and composer-conductor Thomas Adès. The ballet, inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, premiered at the Royal Opera House in London in October 2021.

In 2011, her monumental work FILM was commissioned for the Unilever Series at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. This large-scale 35mm film projection became a landmark piece that helped launch a broader international campaign to preserve photochemical film as an artistic medium.