About
This site documents Mark Dean’s work as an artist. He began working with appropriated film and music in 1992 with his first video, LoveLoveLove, an award winner in New Contemporaries ’93. His first solo show was at City Racing in 1996, where he introduced his characteristic looped video and sound installations. Since then he has regularly exhibited in major UK institutions including the Tate and ICA, and internationally, including Museum Ludwig, Cologne and De Pont Foundation, Tilburg. Public collections include Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-duc Jean, Luxembourg, and Arts Council England, with commissions including the Imperial War Museum, and Barbican Centre. From 2009-12 he was the recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. His work is regularly reviewed in contemporary art journals, and acknowledged in historical surveys:
‘In the 1990’s, the film archive (or, by this time, the video store) also proved a fertile feeding ground for the yBa generation, especially Douglas Gordon (b. 1966) and Mark Dean (b. 1958) … By contrast, Mark Dean’s appropriations from Hollywood are more like votive offerings; tiny scraps of footage – a gesture by Judy Garland, a look by Brando – isolated and looped to drain them of any hint of narrative (other than the broad narrative of celebrity), so we can adore and worship.’ - David Curtis, A History of Artist’s Film and Video in Britain, 1897-2004, BFI Publishing, 2007
This ‘religious’ aspect of Dean’s work has become more explicit since he was ordained in the Church of England, in 2009. He is interested in the historical and potential relation of art and religion, and in 2013 he was appointed as a chaplain → to the University of the Arts London. However, he remains clear that there is no easy relation between contemporary art and religious faith, not least because there is no shared language with which to discuss it; this is the context in which he makes use of appropriation techniques:
‘… works by Mark Dean have managed to open out towards strong emotions while retaining the distinctive constructedness of visual art. The strong content lives and is transformed rather than functioning as reference pure and simple… It is important to stress this crafted opening to cathartic possibility and to the unconscious, because Dean has found means here that are primary, not borrowed from the films or music that are his materials.’ – Ian Hunt, Art Monthly, September 2004
Please note: Video documentation on this site is at lowered resolution, and does not reproduce the experience of works installed for exhibition.
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Please use the menus below to access further information and documentation of Mark Dean’s exhibited works. An illustrated index is available here.