Tacita Dean: Blind Folly

Be it the sea, the land or the haunting, hopeful shape of trees, nature has long been a source of fascination for the artist and film-maker Tacita Dean. In her latest exhibition, at the Menil Collection in Houston, she continues her exploration of trees and natural surroundings – this time drawing on her recent experience of the Texan city – but infuses it with a philosophical flavour (11 October–19 April 2025). Much of the show comprises drawings she created by letting chance guide her hand; she executed the drawings on a variety of materials, including paper, postcards and albumen photographs, in an attempt to let the medium inform her patterns. If this latter objective is characteristic of her art – some of her early works involved cutting pieces of audio tape to the precise length required by the sounds of the birds and insects recorded on them – this exhibition highlights the variety she can mine from the act of drawing, from small-scale scribbles to monumental chalkboard scrawls. A rotating group of her 16mm films are being shown in a separate gallery.

Find out more from the Menil Collection’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary

Beauty (2006), Tacita Dean. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Tenari Tuatagaloa; © the artist

Found Cy, Houston (2024), Tacita Dean. Menil Collection, Houston. © the artist

Sunset (2015), Tacita Dean. Glenstone Museum, Potomac. Courtesy the artist/Frith Street Gallery, London/Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and Los Angeles; photo: Fredrik Nilsen; © the artist

Blind and Dusty (2024), Tacita Dean. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio; courtesy and © the artist