Tacita Dean's Dante-Inspired Exhibition at MUDAM Luxembourg

At MUDAM Luxembourg, Tacita Dean presents a major exhibition interpreting Dante's Divine Comedy through drawing, photography, and film. The show features her largest drawing to date—a white chalk on black paper depiction of inverted mountains representing Hell. For Purgatory, she uses large-format photographs of jacaranda mimosifolia trees, playing with negative and positive to render the purple leaves green. Paradise is an abstract 35mm film evoking planetary motion, accompanied by a digitally simulated orchestral score. Curator Christophe Gallois notes the exhibition mirrors Dante's allegorical journey while also tracing a metaphysical path from black-and-white to color and from figurative to abstract. Dean, a former Young British Artist (1995 Venice Biennale), has explored themes of time and forgetting since the 1990s. Several works originated from The Dante Project, a 2021 ballet by Wayne McGregor for the Royal Ballet, with Dean designing costumes and sets, music by Thomas Adès. The ballet returns to stage at Opéra Garnier in spring 2023. The exhibition runs until February 5, 2023.