Subject of chalkboard drawing also composed of chalk

This cliff in Chalk Fall 2018 (illustrated) seems solid, like the massive wall of a fortress, however on closer inspection, we see the rough waves churning beneath, and realise the cliff-face is giving way, falling into the ocean. Tacita Dean’s monumental chalkboard drawing at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane during the exhibition ‘Air’ evokes the famous White Cliffs of Dover which are eroding evermore swiftly as a result of climate change.

Air | Timed tickets on sale
GOMA, until 23 April 2023

Detail of ‘Chalk Fall’

As Dean began to create Chalk Fall, a close friend was diagnosed with a tumour. ‘Every day’, she recounts, ‘I wrote the date on the board, chalking chalk with chalk in a sedimentation of time and emotion that had a terrible constructive intensity.’ We can also make out chalked notes such as ‘aerial view’ and ‘fade to black’ that are anchored in Dean’s practice as a filmmaker. Chalk Fall is at once a drawing, a journal, a history painting and the record of a deep friendship maintained across an ocean.

Tacita Dean ‘Chalk Fall’

Installing the 9 panels at GOMA

Watch: Tacita Dean introduces ‘Chalk Fall’

Watch: Take a peek at the exhibition ‘Air’

Edited extract from the accompanying exhibition publication Air available at the QAGOMA Store and online. 

‘Air’ / Gallery of Modern Art, Gallery 1.1 (The Fairfax Gallery), Gallery 1.2 & Gallery 1.3 (Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery) / 26 November 2022 to 23 April 2023

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