Craneway Event
The photographs in Craneway Event, 2010, by Tacita Dean, depict the celebrated choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham and his company rehearsing in a former Ford factory in Richmond, California. In 2008, Dean collaborated with Cunningham to film his dance troupe inside this dramatic setting, an industrial port building designed in 1931 by architect Albert Kahn to accommodate cranes and surrounded on three sides by windows overlooking the San Francisco Bay. These six images, stills from the resulting feature-length 16mm film, were created through photogravure, a labour-intensive analog process using a negative to etch into copper plate, then hand-pulling the image in ink. This project represents Cunningham’s last choreography, as he died the next year before Craneway Event was completed. Dean continued to edit the work, finishing it in the choreographer’s absence. Cunningham can be seen directing from his wheelchair amid shifting sunlight and the elegant silhouettes of dancers in motion, lending the images a twilight sensibility.
2010
Set of six color photogravures
91.13 x 241.12cm
178
Image and text © Dimensional Fund Advisors, 2022