Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art. Volume 1 - страница 9

Rene Magritte, Forbidden literature, 1936, oil on canvas

Like any organism, a tree grows, changes and fades, and this in turn becomes the subject of close attention by the South Korean sculptor Myeongbeom Kim. His installation “Staircase” (V1, p. 305) was executed directly in the natural landscape, where the trunks of two trees connected by rungs and steps symbolically continue the life cycle. The natural arrangement of the installation echoes the “Tree in the Garden” motif – in the Christian interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis about the “Tree of Life”, which grants eternity, and the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”, whose forbidden fruit has become a symbol of the mortality of human flesh.

The identification of the tree with the vital energy embedded within it is transformed into a metaphor for the creative flow in the painting of “The Truth about Comets” (V1, p. 304) by the American surrealist Dorothea Tanning (1945). Against the background of the winter landscape, a staircase appears, the railing of which sprouts with woody branches directed to the celestial bodies. Their very appearance is presented as a bewitching, magical spectacle, observed by mermaids personifying the artist herself. A staircase passing into a tree, whose steps go up into the sky, creates an image of a creative process leading to the freedom of imagination. Tanning’s interpretation of immersion in the irrational depths of the subconscious is replaced by a more sensual approach to the study of the surrounding reality of the Spanish artist and designer Nacho Carbonell.

In his street installation “The Playground Closes at Dusk” (V1, p. 318) (2011), four interactive objects are presented on high ladders, climbing on which the viewer can smell, hear, touch and see, following the author’s instructions. At the same time, the fifth part of the installation, “Memorabilia”, embodies human memory, which plays the role of the main repository of cause and effect relationships, emotions and impressions. The many small boxes at the top of the ladders symbolize a cloud of memories like those found in our own minds. For the artist the climb carried out by the viewer goes beyond the scope of physical effort and can be interpreted as a psychological journey to the deep levels of the subconscious. Aroused interest in introspection is translated as the main feature of the individual, which in this case is projected onto the ladder-object.

A similar visually constructed relationship between the installation and the viewer is emphasized by the work of the American artist Nick Clifford Simko in “Still Life with a Ladder” (V1, p. 215) (2012). The stepladder taken as a basis is identified with the body, assembled from objects sequentially placed on the steps, such as a classic plaster head, flowers, a phallic figure and boots, which in general is built into a portrait. The addition of shoes makes the generalized nature of the comparison of the stairs with the figure of a person more personal, introducing an everyday detail of identification. An even more personalized image endowed with psychological characteristics is created in the installation of the Spanish photographer Chema Madoz in “Disabled Ladder” (2003). A crutch-based design loses its stability and integrity, which creates a convincing emotionally charged focus on physical features. This emphasizes the clarity of comparing the ladder with a living organism that is capable of experiencing suffering and pain.