Tacita Dean : Antigone2021

Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart hosts the Swiss premiere of Antigone (2018), Tacita Dean's (b. 1965) most complex work to date. The presentation of the hourlong, anamorphic 35mm film is contextualized by other films, photographs, photogravures, and chalk drawings of the British-European artist. Antigone revolves around the name 'Antigone' and how it resonates, not only in Greek literary history, but also in the artist's own life. Antigone is the name of Dean's older sister so was one of the first words the artist ever learnt. 'Antigone' is also the eponymous heroine in the Theban trilogy of plays by the Greek tragedian Sophocles, which led Dean to intertwine her own story with the mythological cosmic order of classical antiquity. Ever since her first encounter with the myth of King Oedipus,...