Tacita Dean's Writings Collected in French-Language Volume

A new book, 'Ecrits choisis 1992-2011', gathers Tacita Dean's writings, many previously unpublished in French. The volume inaugurates the collection 'Que dit l'artiste ?' edited by Anne Bertrand. Most texts were originally written to accompany the British artist's films, which she aptly calls 'asides'—theatrical direct addresses to the audience. The writings share the same singular tone as her 16 mm films, offering both counterpoint and complement. For those unfamiliar with her work, the texts stand alone; for instance, the eponymous piece on writer W. G. Sebald vertiginously connects things and beings. 'Obsolescence', one of the few not tied to a film, encapsulates Dean's nostalgia and her personal search for lost time around her birth. She argues that only analog film can capture this temporal and spatial description, while digital sound recording, inherently memoryless, poses no issue. Dean acknowledges the extreme fragility and probable disappearance of her medium but continues to patiently build a world of astonishing consistency.