Tacita Dean

Description

"On a French exchange, when I was about 13, I was staying in a village I remember being called Pontchateau. My exchange family were pork butchers! One day, I found a whole crop of 4 and 5 leafed clovers in the garden. I had already been collecting them since the age of 8. I picked them all and carefully took them to my room to press them, but was told we had to leave so I put them all in a glass of water. When I returned some hours later, the mother of my French exchange, Mme Morand, had thrown out the water and put the clovers in the bin. I pulled out the clovers but they were already dried and dead so I put them in that envelope which still remains to this day with my clover collection." - Tacita Dean The clover collection Tacita Dean refers to is the artwork Four, Five, Six and Seven Leaf Clover Collection (1972-present), featured on pp. 12-13 of the monograph, which is closely related to the strategies of archiving and sense of serendipity that inform all of her work.