Tacita Dean
Tacita Dean, born 1965 in Canterbury, Great Britain, lives and works in London and Berlin. In her art, films, photographs and chalk drawings, Tacita Dean moves through regions that have traditionally been separated from science. She is interested in strange and unique phenomena, private utopias and interrupted narratives in which culture is reflected and human longings find their place. Dean combines in her work the yearning for emotion and the sensibility of a romantic wanderer with the analytical passion of an inquiring observer.
Lord Byron Died
2003
Published for the 50th Venice Biennale
Set of 6 black-and-white photographs on baryta paper, 40 x 60 cm (15¾ x 23½ in) each. Edition of 33, with signed and numbered certificate.
Tacitda Dean on this edition: "Some years ago, I went to Sounion in Greece to look for Lord Byron's signature, famously carved into one of the columns in the temple there. I couldn't find it. Instead, I photographed these other names, carved into the marble in the copperplate writing style of the vandals of that time. They are evidence of an era of Romantic wanderings, sea voyages and a new affinity with the Classical Age. Somehow it seems fitting that those carved works and numbers should now read as end dates for such a period of incomparable literary brilliance."
