Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art. Volume 1 - страница 2

In Tsivin’s work the ladder Jacob sleeps under is of triangular form, suggesting a stepladder or a tent (V1: 80, 81); perhaps the shelter it provides indicates God’s protectiveness towards man. Or perhaps the tent, omnipresent in nomadic cultures like that of the Prophets, suggests the inevitability of the spiritual path that each of us must travel to reach our heights.

Anselm Kiefer often includes ladders in his works and in the German Romantic tradition seeks the perfect symbol to imbue his works with deep philosophical meaning. The titles of his paintings “Seraphim” (V2: 342) and “First” (V2: 343) refer to Biblical texts, one of the central motifs of his oeuvre. In Kiefer’s works, stairs and ladders are often reborn from the wreckage of the old world in accordance with established divine law. The ladder in “Seraphim” is the highest point, the culminating chord sounding in the void. This note does not oppose chaos; on the contrary, it is constructed from the elements of chaos. By mixing paints with dirt, sand, dust, straw, rusty metal and clay, the artist creates an archetypal image: a ladder, ideally capable of structuring chaos thanks to its structure, which arranges space horizontally and vertically. And just as God created man in his own image and gave him the right to create and destroy, so the artist combines these two poles in his paintings. Kiefer is acutely aware of each individual’s responsibility of for the fate of all mankind and his works often address the theme of war, destruction and subsequent rebirth. In many of those works ladders serve as harbingers of a new, mysterious life.

In Ilya Kabakov’s installation “Red Wagon”, the ladders leading up from the city invite the viewer to make a bold leap into the future, promising liberation to everyone who dares to climb them. Its complex, constructivist form alludes to Tatlin’s “Tower of the Third International”, the Babylonian tower of Communism, embodying the utopianism of the idea itself.

Nonetheless, in another work, “How to Meet an Angel”, Kabakov gives us hope: if a person manages to climb the steps of the ladder 3600 feet toward the sky, an angel will fly to him. And here the ladder represents not only the path to another world, but also a chance to see a miracle with one’s own eyes. In this context, the bronze installation of “How to Meet an Angel” on the façade of a clinic for the mentally ill in Amsterdam can be interpreted as a symbol of hope for salvation.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, How to Meet an Angel, installation on the facade of the Mentrum Clinic, 2009, Amsterdam, photo by Emilia Kabakova

Many artists have created largescale works on the “stairway to heaven” motif. The Chinese artist Yu Hong’s twentyfoot painting of the same name (V1: 99) was inspired by the 12thcentury icon “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” (V1: 98) in St Catherine’s monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt. In Hong’s interpretation, men and women of different ages climb up or fall from a ladder that has no end or beginning. The dynamic poses and the characteristic details of their clothing of each character reveal their respective social status. This lends the work a theatrical-satirical tone and distances it from the sacred and sublime original.