What is not seen in a photograph. Between Tacita Dean and W.G. Sebald

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Abstract

This text addresses the relationship between image, narrative and archive in a selection of works by the British artist Tacita Dean (1965), focusing on those of her pieces that can be more easily related to the literature of the German writer W.G. Sebald (1944-2001). In these works, the artist explores issues such as the construction of individual and collective memory, the use of found images versus newly created images, the relationship between documentary reality and creative fiction, and the importance of the material medium in the creation of an artwork. Likewise, she questions modernist praise of the grid as a formal element that cancels out any narrative notion, and suggests a new relationship between narrative texts and visual images from an original and fruitful point of view. This relationship can also be found in the work of the German writer, whose literature has been a constant and rewarding point of reference for Dean. The article analyses these issues to conclude that they can both  be considered archival artists, one of the most productive trends in the artistic contemporary practices of the last two decades, and that their works make an important contribution to the resignification of images in an era of visual saturation and banality.

Keywords

archive, memory, photography, Tacita Dean, W.G. Sebald

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References

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Author Biography

M. Lluïsa Faxedas Brujats, University of Girona

PhD in Art History and professor of Contemporary Art History, Contemporary Art in Catalonia and Cultural Management at the University of Girona. She is currently Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and was previously coordinator of the Master's in Cultural Tourism and the Master's in Communication and Art Criticism at the UdG. He is a member of the Chair of Contemporary Art and Culture and of the research project “Images and counterimages. Uses of photography in contemporary artistic practices". He has published several articles and studies on contemporary art issues, gender issues and Catalan artists, and has also curated and collaborated in several exhibitions on these issues.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.33115/udg_bib/cp.v6i12.22013

Published

2017-06-01

How to Cite

Faxedas Brujats, M. L. (2017). What is not seen in a photograph. Between Tacita Dean and W.G. Sebald. Communication Papers. Media Literacy and Gender Studies., 6(12), 153–169. https://doi.org/10.33115/udg_bib/cp.v6i12.22013

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Articles