24 November 2010 – 27 February 2011
Tuesday – Sunday, 11am-5pm
Upper Gallery 1, Canteen Gallery 2 & Arch Gallery
Having spent the 80’s in a post-punk wilderness, Mark Dean was catapulted into the eye of the art world in the early 90’s with his first video work LoveLoveLove, gaining the attention of the influential art critic Stuart Morgan, a show at City Racing (1992), a place on the MA course at Goldsmiths College (1992-94) and a prize in New Contemporaries (1993) – all at once.
LoveLoveLove set the pace for a body of distinctive work that was characterised by the use of appropriated clips – image often lacerated from feature films and sound re-mixed from Pop music – and which focussed on the most fundamental aspects of the human condition. In recent years the emphasis on appropriated imagery has given way to the artist also taking up position behind the camera.
The Beginning of The End offers a pause for reflection and will run across the Beaconsfield site in all three exhibition spaces, featuring the new works Love Missile (7” vs 12”), The Men Who Fell to Earth, Forever (Earlier Attempts), Christian Disco (Terminator) and Open Your Eyes (Syd/Vicious). As an integral part of the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to view the range of Mark Dean’s art works made over the past twenty years, through personal selection. The archive includes the works Dean has made for a number of Beaconsfield projects including Experimental Religion (2008), Crimson & Clover (Version), Rag Doll (Version), Police & Thieves (Version) (all 2005) and Picture In Picture (TyhaerPGincatiurroeDoffoDeorruitacniGPreahyT) (1997).
Mark Dean received a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists in 2009 and in July 2010 was ordained in the Church of England. He states: ‘I am interested in the relation of contemporary art and religion, but do not recognise any shared language with which to discuss this – at least, not at the level that either discipline requires. I might be wrong, of course. In any case, my work is driven by this question.’
Click here to read Rachel Wither’s review of the exhibition in Artforum (April 2011)
Click here to read Helen Sumpter’s review of the exhibition in Time Out (Jan 13-19 2011)
Click here to read Eliza Williams’s review of the exhibition in Art Monthly (February 2011)
Click here to download the exhibition Desk Text
Click here to download the accompanying essay Mark Dean: The Beginning of The End?
Click here for info on Mark Dean’s new work My Mum (V2 – Sensitive) produced during the Beaconsfield exhibition period.
This is the second in the Beaconsfield series Phase which turns the spotlight on mid-career artists with whom the organisation has a significant relationship.