31 Jan 2014

Open Call for Young Artists. XX CSAV – Artists Research Laboratory

CSAV – Artists Research Laboratory is a project where dialogue and exchange among artists of different generations and nationalities stand at the heart of a unique artistic and learning experience. The lab is open to fifteen young artists of all nationalities, selected among the applicants by a jury. The programme lasts twenty-four days during which the participants attend a daily workshop activity and theoretical seminars run by the invited artist, the director, the curator and guest lecturers, as well as conferences held by artists, critics and experts of other disciplines.

The XX edition of the laboratory, titled Comoggardising: the benefits of creative indolence, will be held in Como from the 30th of June to the 23rd of July 2014. Tacita Dean will be leading the workshop.

During this year laboratory, Tacita Dean will invite the young participants to re-find what the Swiss writer Robert Walser named 'sluggardising'. Interpreted by Dean as the ability to work while appearing to be doing nothing, most often when lying down, this is an important state for the artist and it is often misinterpreted or misunderstood. The level of brain idleness that will be encouraged during the workshop is very rigorous indeed and difficult to achieve. It is an invitation to identify new time and new space in one's life in order to move closer to discovering an unconscious level to one's art practice.

The laboratory is free of charge. Accommodation expenses in Como are to be covered by the participants. To apply, please fill in the form available online at www.fondazioneratti.org. The application and all required materials must be sent by the 31st of March 2014.

Tacita Dean was born in 1965 in Canterbury, UK. She studied at Falmouth School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art before moving to live and work in Berlin in 2000. The films, drawings and other works by Tacita Dean are extremely original. Her recent film portraits express something that neither painting nor photography can capture. They are purely film. And while Dean can appreciate the past, her art avoids any kind of academic approach. Dean's art is carried by a sense of history, time and place, light quality and the essence of the film itself. The focus of her subtle but ambitious work is the truth of the moment, the film as a medium and the sensibilities of the individual.

Dean's solo exhibitions include Tate Britain, London (2001), MACBA, Barcelona (2001), Tate St Ives (2005), Schaulager, Basel (2006), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2007), Nicola Trussardi Foundation, Milan (2009), ACCA, Melbourne (2009), MUMOK, Vienna (2011), Turbine Hall (Unilever Series), Tate Modern, London (2011) and the New Museum, New York (2012). Most recent exhibitions include The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia and her latest film project 'JG' at Arcadia University Art Gallery, Philadelphia (2013) and Frith Street Gallery, London (2013) and 'c/o Jolyon, 2012-2013' at Frith Street Gallery, London (2013).