Meeting Point 01: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art
Achilleas Aperghis, Ladders, 1978
Installation (reconstruction), wood, 475 cm height
Donation of Georges Aperghis (2002), MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art Collection
Creative Audio Description MP01 ( / - x )

Creative descripion
The artwork “Ladders” by Achilleas Aperghis was created in 1978. It is an imposing installation of nine wooden ladders that rise vertically from the floor and penetrate the ceiling through a square opening. Each ladder is 475 cm high, equivalent to the height of about three people, and five of the nine ladders are depicted in relief, each from a different perspective.
On the left there is a ladder with 13 steps, depicted in a frontal view. In the centre, there is the relief outline of three interlocking ladders, depicted in frontal, three-quarter, and oblique views. On the right, another ladder is depicted with twelve steps, shown in a three-quarter view.
The “ladders” are made of natural wood with a yellowish color and consist of two long vertical pieces of wood intersected by smaller pieces of wood placed parallel to each other at equal intervals, forming a scale. The surface of the wood is minimally treated and rough, with scattered brown round knots and metal nails connecting the steps to the vertical wood.
The composition is reminiscent of the skeleton of buildings in an abandoned or under-construction city and evokes a desire to mentally climb it.
In this particular artwork, the utilitarian dimension of the ladder has been removed and is used symbolically, evoking, as the artist puts it, the “mania” of “climbing”, of ascending or rising to something higher. The first installation of the artwork “Ladders” took place at the Modena Gallery in 1978, where the artist incorporated the recorded phrase “Salgo? Perchè NO Ma dove vanno? NON SO TU sai?” (Shall I go up? Why NOT But where are they going? I DON’T KNOW DO YOU KNOW?), repeated in Italian in his own voice.
The ladder motif, symbolizing spiritual exaltation, social advancement, and the ascent to knowledge, dominated the final period of Achilleas Aperghis’s work, whether in the form of large installations in public spaces or as portable sculptures.

Photos from Meeting Point 01: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art


The creative description of the artwork “Ladders” by Achilleas Aperghis is the result of co-creation by the participants in Meeting Point 01: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art.
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