Air

Tacita Dean Born 1965, Canterbury, United Kingdom Lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Los Angeles, United States Tacita Dean contrasts the precipice-edge of land’s end with the free-falling vertigo of the air just beyond in her imposing chalkboard drawing Chalk Fall 2018. At first glance, the cliff face and its sharply delineated edge seem solid, like the monumental wall of a fortress. On closer inspection, rough ocean waves churning at the cliff-base are visible, and we realise the landscape’s central portion is giving way and falling into the water. The white of the foaming waves intermingles with the white dust of the ancient, fragmenting cliff. Dean comments: I was drawn to the idea of using chalk — my medium — to depict chalk, particularly the scar left by the collapse of a chalk cliff, and the instant bleaching that happens to its weathered face as the sections of its ancient structure just drop to dust. 1 There are many fragile edges and precipices in this work. Dean evokes the famous White Cliffs of Dover memorialised in song and poetry and increasingly impacted by climate change and rising sea levels. While the solid chalk of this coastline contains inherent instabilities and has slowly eroded over millennia, the pace of its erosion has multiplied tenfold over the past 150 years. Chalk Fall also reflects the impact of Brexit on Dean’s country of birth, the United Kingdom — an island nation separating itself from Europe and tearing at its own social fabric in the process. 1 ‘Tacita Dean discusses “Chalk Fall”’, QAGOMA YouTube , <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=T6yniwuIDGU>, viewed July 2022. Tacita Dean / Chalk Fall (details) 2018 177 176 Change Change