Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art. Volume 1
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The Cuban artist Kcho (Alexis Machado) expresses this ambivalence in his 1990 installation, “The Worst of All Traps” (V2, p. 215). His ladder’s frail wooden frame suggests that it would make easy prey for enemies, but the rungs are made from machete blades – symbols of the Cuban war of independence. The artist’s use of palm branches – the national tree of Cuba, strengthens the already obvious allegory and ensured that the work attracted broad attention in Cuba. Nevertheless, Kcho asserts that the materials do not dominate the installation, but rather help the viewer find meaning in their very physical essence.
Unlike Kcho’s rusty machetes, which recall Cuba’s history but pose only a metaphorical threat, the sharpened steel knife-steps in Marina Abramovic’s 1996 installation “Double Edge” (V1, p. 126–127) can cause real physical harm. Here, as in much of her work, Abramovic examines the limits of physicality, provoking in the viewer an emotional involvement on the level of reflex. The work consists of four ladders with rungs made of different materials – from ordinary smooth wood to knife blades, heated metal and icy rails. The sight of these ladders whose familiar form has been transformed into something dangerous causes psychological discomfort in the viewer. These “dangerous steps” are a metaphor for trials that have to be overcome by overcoming mental and physical fears. In the museum setting, this installation did not involve physical contact, but in 2002, Abramovic revisited the ladders in her performance piece, “The House with the Ocean View” (V1, p. 124–125). For twelve days the artist lived in specially built minimalist rooms, open for viewing by visitors to the gallery. Under these conditions, ordinary actions take on the ritual character of a trial, a test combining asceticism and total publicity. Ladders with knives for rungs physically prevent the artist from going beyond the allotted space, thus an inanimate passive object becomes an actor in the performance, demonstrating its power over the will of the artist.
Eadweard Muybridge, Woman Walking Down Stairs, Chrono-photography, 1887
“For ‘The House with The Ocean View’ it was very difficult to be in the present constantly for twelve days, so I always tried to stand on the edge, over the ladder with knives, where I might fall on the knives.” [6]
In another project, “The Abramovic Method” (2016), at the Benaki Museum in Athens, the viewer becomes part of the performance that takes place on a gently sloping ramp that connects floors of the museum on the way to the main exhibition space. The artist has deliberately chosen a space in the museum that is usually considered secondary, to be passed through quickly. Participants in the performance are forced to move in slow motion, concentrating on a more profound consciousness of their bodies in time and space; this is particularly noticeable in contrast to the movement of other visitors to the museum. In this way, Abramovic induces the viewers to focus, through body experience, on a specific “episode” of life.
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Interview with Marina Abramovich, Artspace magazine, 2016.com/ magazine/interviews_features/book_report/marina-abramovic-interviewklaus-biesen-bach-54182 (accessed: 10/20/2019).
Artists began to portray movement on stairs in painting at the end of the 19thcentury. Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1912 cubist painting, “Nude Descending a Staircase” (V1, p. 183), which The New York Times christened “Explosion at the Tile Factory”, depicts a woman’s motion down five steps along a spiral staircase through the successive overlapping of individual fragments. The painting was inspired by the new technology of cinema and particularly by Eadweard Muybridge’s famous series of photographs “Woman Descending Stairs”, made in 1887.
Gerhard Richter’s “Ema. Nude on a Staircase” (V1, p. 185), painted in 1966 is a comment on Duchamp’s work. Like Duchamp, Richter based his painting on a photograph. The model was the artist’s wife, descending an ordinary staircase devoid of details that would indicate a particular time. Richter’s almost ghostly image, seemingly woven of dreams and memories, renders Duchamp’s experiment to the limits of traditional portrait painting, a genre much out of favor in the art world of the 1960s. Richter’s painting later served as an inspiration for Bernhard Schlink’s 2014 novel, “The Woman on the Stairs”.
The phenomenon of movement both up and down steps is the subject of Mario Ceroli’s sculpture “La Scala” (V1, p. 186). His staircase with profile cut-outs of men and women, made of unpainted wood, captures the various phases of this movement, focusing on the contrast of static and dynamic. In her live installation “Plastic” (2015–16) by the artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi explores the same dichotomy of static and dynamic, examining pauses both plastic and temporal in a museum space. Hassabi placed performers along the flight of stairs lying perfectly still, contrasting sharply with the rapid flow of visitors around them. Thus, the artist expands our idea of the obviously utilitarian significance of the stairs in the museum, slowing down the rhythm of our reaction to its meaning.
“This is a transition space. For this reason, I was interested in presenting the work there (on the stairs). How can transitional space become a pause? Thus, the movement of stairs has a very forward direction to it. It’s falling forward.” [7]
Maria Hassabi, Plasticity, performance, 2016, Museum of Modern Art, New York
A staircase represents not only movement but also stability – architecturally, staircases are pillars that unite different levels. Since ancient times, this simple formula has given rise to many plastic variations, to the point where today we can determine the architectural style and period of a structure from the staircase. To this day architects continue to experiment with stairs, often sacrificing functionality to play with forms. Perhaps this is because other means for ascending and descending have diminished the staircase’s practical function, leaving it only a romantic role in modern architecture.
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Hassabi, Maria, PLASTIC, Khanacademy, 2016.(accessed: 10/20/2019).
Macbeth, 2015, Vienna State Opera, set design by Gary McCann
M. C. Escher was one of the first artists to depict absurd stairs, stairs that are endless and simultaneously devoid of function. In his 1953 lithograph “Relativity” (V2, p. 50) he depicted an architectural structure with several levels united by stairs, full of geometric paradoxes. Escher eventually created a series of lithographs with impossible stairs and constructions, making him a major figure in the school of “impossible reality”. They were created under the influence of Lionel Penrose and his mathematician son Roger, whose model of a “continuous staircase” in the form of a square with no exit causes the walker, if he walks clockwise, to descend, and if he walks counter-clockwise, to ascend, in both cases endlessly.
Escher’s use of stairs as a dynamic symbol of forward movement, spiritual ascent and transformation, transition to a different, higher state, gave rise to a whole direction in the visual arts. Stairs as an Escherian symbol became an integral part of modern mass culture, appearing in the theater, cinema and animation. Martina Casey designed a set for a nonexistent spectacle based on “Relativity” (V2, p. 51), in which ladders as a metaphor for elevation, change and movement connect different points of view: artist, actors and spectators. Escher’s “Relativity” has inspired the set designs of numerous theatrical productions. Gary McCann built a multidimensional maze of walkways and staircases for the opera “Macbeth” at Vienna State Opera in 2015. The bewildering series of stairways mirrors the characters’ confusion and moral decline and embody the seductive nature of evil. In Julia Noulin-Merat’s 2018 set for “The Barber of Seville” at Boston Lyric Opera, “impossible staircases” are placed all over the stage, emphasizing the paradox of what is happening. Shizuka Hariu’s set for Nitin Sahwney’s “Dystopian Dream” is one example of Escher’s influence on contemporary choreography. The set embodies the space “between a dream and twisted reality” [8] , in which Escher’s image symbolizes the internal contradictions and reflections inherent to man.
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Shizuka, Hariu, artist’s statement.(accessed 1/05/2020)
Escher’s “Relativity” has been recreated in mass-market movies as well, for example, the room where the final confrontation scene in Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” (1986) takes place, and the moving stairs scene in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” directed by Chris Columbus in 2001. In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film “Inception” two episodes evoke and attempt to explain the Penroses’ “continuous staircase”, and characters climbing the stairs recall Escher’s“ Ascending and Descending”. Escher’s stairs also appear in the cartoon series “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” among others.