October 11 - April 19, 2025
From the Menil Collection:
“Tacita Dean: Blind Folly is the first major museum survey in the United States of work by the British European visual artist Tacita Dean (b. 1965). The exhibition, organized in close collaboration with Dean, spotlights her career-defining approach to creating art through unmediated and chance-based drawing processes across a variety of mediums, from film to printmaking.
The show’s title reflects Dean’s desire to let the behavior of her mediums dictate the results of her work. For the artist, the playful British phrase connoting foolishness, “blind folly,” represents her trust in the role chance and fate play in the creative act. She has said that her process is about “how to find by not looking.”
Tacita Dean: Blind Folly will include Dean’s monumental blackboard drawings about the fragility of nature, her large-scale “portraits” of trees, drawings of lightning made with carbon paper, cloud formations on Victorian-era slates, and groups of rarely shown drawings from her studio on paper, found postcards, and albumen photographs. A separate gallery presents a rotating group of her 16mm films, showcasing how she conceives the analogue medium as “drawing with light.” Together, the selection spans Dean’s more than three-decade-long career.
Accompanying the show will be an illustrated book by Michelle White, Senior Curator, The Menil Collection. In early 2025, the Menil will publish an artist book by Tacita Dean for the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Cy Twombly Gallery.
Film Schedule
Claes Oldenburg Draws Blueberry Pie: October 11–December 1, 2024
The Friar’s Doodle: December 4, 2024–January 12, 2025
Edwin Parker: January 15–March 9, 2025
The Green Ray: March 12–April 19, 2025
Tacita Dean: Blind Folly is curated by Michelle White, Senior Curator, The Menil Collection.
Underwriting for this exhibition is generously provided by Lea Weingarten; and Nina and Michael Zilkha. Major funding for this exhibition is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc./Nancy O’Connor; Clare Casademont and Michael Metz; Cecily E. Horton; and Morris A. Weiner and Leslie Field. Additional support comes from Mary and Marcel Barone; Hilda Curran; John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Cece and Mack Fowler; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Janet and Paul Hobby; Caroline Huber; Linda and George Kelly; Anne Levy Charitable Trust; Rebecca Marvil and Brian Smyth; Susan and Francois de Menil; Fan and Peter Morris; Franci Neely; Carol and David Neuberger; Mark W. and Angela Laswell Smith; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Allian”
On View: October 11, 2024 | 12–5 pm
1515 Sul Ross
Houston, 77006 TX
(713) 525-9400
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