Chasm

Chasm is a monumental sculpture by the South African artist Daniel Popper, made in 2021–22 and first installed at the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) music festival in Las Vegas, where it served as a gateway to one of the festival's areas. About 26 feet (8 meters) tall, it is built from foam over a metal armature, finished in concrete and covered with layers of street art led by the graffiti artist A-A-Ron. It was conceived as a temporary work for a run of festival seasons.

What you are looking at

A colossal female head and upper body has been split down the middle. The two halves lean apart, each with half of a calm, sleeping face: closed eyes, a long nose, full lips, hair swept back in heavy waves. Between them, rows of metal rods and pipes bridge the gap, as if trying to pull the two sides back together or holding them apart.

Below the head, the torso opens into an archway tall enough to walk through. The surface of the body is covered in a riot of graffiti, tags, painted faces and patterns in turquoise, orange, pink and yellow, while industrial fragments such as gears, pipes and springs bulge from the shoulders. The face, by contrast, is left mostly in bare grey, so its serenity stands out against the visual noise.

Meaning

Popper describes Chasm as a call for unity between opposites: despair and hope, collapse and continuity. The woman is torn apart, yet her expression is peaceful, and the bright passage through her body leads visitors through the split and out the other side. The graffiti suggests generations of people leaving their marks on a ruin, in an imagined future after collapse. At a music festival, where strangers gather to dance, the message of division bridged by shared experience is direct.

Daniel Popper's figures

Popper, based in Cape Town, is known for giant hybrid figures built for festivals, botanical gardens and public spaces, often faces that open into doorways or merge with plants and machines. Other works in the catalogue include Modem Swamp and Thrive. Compare Lorenzo Quinn's monumental hands in Building Bridges. More at Daniel Popper.