Base Matter and Uncommon Solvent: Drawings, Prints, Collages, and Objects 1988–2024

Base Matter and Uncommon Solvent is an overdue comprehensive survey of drawings, prints, collages, and objects that are directly drawn, marked, or altered by Tacita Dean. The chosen works differentiate from those made using mechanical reproduction, such as photographs, purely image-based etching and screenprints, and her 16mm and 35mm films.

The careful collation of works in the book, including many early or previously unseen images, show the importance of the graphic touch in Dean’s work. The volume includes an essay by the artist highlighting her use of various substrates and materials where she questions why she has historically found it so difficult to make drawings on simple pieces of paper. The title is derived from the language of alchemy and was first referenced by Dean in her early photogravure T & I, 2006. ‘Base matter’ represents here the various surfaces she works upon and ‘uncommon solvent’ the mediums she has used to make a mark. 

This luxurious volume is co-edited and designed with her long-term friend and collaborator Martyn Ridgewell and is timed to coincide with ‘Tacita Dean: Blind Folly’, the first major exhibition in the United States to focus on her drawings at The Menil Collection, Houston, 11 October 2024–19 April 2025, followed by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago later in 2025.