Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art. Volume 1
Intended for the general reader, the two-volume monograph Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art is a visual examination of many manifestations of stairs in fine art and literature from pre-historic times to the present day. Throughout history and across cultures steps, ladders and stairs play a philosophic role in religious tradition and works of art: artists use the image to address questions of the path of life – how to ascend or descend, and where to; what obstacles are encountered on the way; individual flights and falls. The two volumes present Chemiakin’s visual analysis of the subject as well as explanatory texts treating diverse aspects of the research.Mihail Chemiakin, an artist, sculptor and art researcher, has collected over 2000 images on the theme of stairs in art, of which 768 are presented in this book. Steps, Ladder, Stairs in Art, first published in Russian in 2020, is the third in a series of books on themes of Chemiakin’s “Museum of the Imagination” research project.
Книга издана в 2023 году.
Читать Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art. Volume 1 онлайн беплатно
Originally published in Russian as «Лестница в искусстве» by the Mihail Chemiakin Centre with the support of the Antropov Foundation, 2018.
This publication was effected with the help of the Preservation and Digital Transformation of World Cultural Heritage Foundation (Moscow).
The Mihail Chemiakin Centre would like to thank Andrei Georgievich Reus and Alexei Borisovich Antropov for their invaluable support of Mihail Chemiakin’s Musée Imaginaire, as well as
Tatyana Chemiakine, Marina Kesler, Leigh Warre, Vladimir Ivanov and Alan Lamb for their help in the preparation of the exhibition and catalogue.
Concept, compilation, analysis – Mihail Chemiakin
Image pre-production – Sergey Krylov
Exhibition curator – Olga Sazonova
Translations – Sarah H. de Kay
© Algis Grishkevicius (LATGA), Andre Nagel (BILD-KUNST), Garcia Fernando Garcia (VEGAP), Gerardo Feldstein (SAVA), Jakomo Balla (SIAE), Joe Tilson (DACS), Joseph Beuys (BILD-KUNST), George Brecht (BILD-KUNST), Dorothea Tanning (ADAGP), Joan Miro (ADAGP), Ivan Ignacio Navarro (ADAGP), Yinka Shonibare (DACS), Ilya and Emilia Kabakov (BILD-KUNST), Christoph Medicous (BILD-KUNST), Larisa Stenlander (BUS), Louise Bourgeois (ARS), Marina Abramovich (BILD-KUNST), Marc Chagall (ADAGP), Marseille Duchamp (ADAGP), Massimo Campigli (SIAE), Peter Klemensovich (ADAGP), Paul Bury (ADAGP), Rene Magritte (ADAGP), Robert Raushenberg (ARS), César Martinez Silva (VEGAP), Sophia Hülten (BILD-KUNST), Stephanie Zohe (BILD-KUNST), Fernand Léger (ADAGP), Hans Hemmert (BILDKUNST), Juan Muñoz (VEGAP) Reproduced per a license agreement with UPRAVIS.
Reproduced per a license agreement with UPRAVIS.
© M. Chemiakin, 2019
© O. Sazonova, D. Lobanova, K. Chernyshova, D. Abramova, text, 2019
© V. Ivanov, text, 2019
© R. Saikia, text, 2019
© S. H. de Kay, translations, 2022
«A ladder, quick, give me a ladder!..»
Gogol’s last words, noted by Dr. A. T. Tarasenkov 20 February 1852
Aurelia Raffo, Ugo La Pietra in The Big Chance, 1972, photograph
Exhibitions
2000 – The Sphere in Art
2002 – The Reaper: Images of Death in Art
2003 – The Hand in Art
2004 – Monsters in Art
2005 – The Metaphysical Head in Art
2006 – Out of Focus: Blurred Images in Art
2009 – Not Made For Walking: Shoes in Art
2010 – Cries in Art
2010 – Images of Death in Art
2012 – Seats of… Chairs in Art
2012 – Disturbed Images: Cuts in Art
2013 – Children in Art
2015 – The Automobile in Art Letters, Words, Text in Art
2016 – Clothing in Art
2018 – Swaddled, Bandaged and Wrapped Figures and Objects in Art
2019 – Steps, Ladders, Stairs in Art
Musée Imaginaire
“Musée Imaginaire” is a research project created by the artist and sculptor Mihail Chemiakin. At its core is the analysis and academic classification of object, artistic devices, signs and symbols in the works of various genres of visual art. The analysis is conducted through the juxtaposition of images culled from books, exhibition catalogues, engravings, and photographs of works in museums. In decades of work on this project, Chemiakin, working not only as an artist but also as a philosopher, analyst, art historian and educator, has created a unique research laboratory-library of artistic expression. The research materials reveal whole previously unexplored areas of world culture, and demonstrate how an image is transformed and interpreted in the art of different cultures and epochs. Among approximately 400 themes examined in the context of the research are “Children in Art”, “Images of Death in Art”, “Blurred Images in Art”, “The Hand in Art”, and the subject of this book, “Letters, Words and Text in Art”. The laboratory and library are currently housed in the artist’s studios at his residence in France, where artists and art historians come from Russia to study.
The Russian television channel“ Kultura” produced a series of 21 filmed lectures titled “Mihail Chemiakin’s Musée Imaginaire” in 2002–2009. In 2003 the series was nominated for the TEFI award, and was awarded four prizes at the VIII International “Velvet Season” Television Festival, for best film in the category of “Cultural and Educational Programming”.
Beginning in 2000, Chemiakin has curated numerous thematic exhibitions in Hudson, NY; Loches, France; and in Russia, in St. Petersburg, Khanty-Mansiisk, Nalchik, Maikop, Kaluga, Voronezh, Lipetsk, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Kaliningrad, Sochi and Norilsk.
In 2013 Chemiakin published a book dedicated to the study “Chair in Art”. Then in 2015 the first full catalog of the exhibition “Letters, Words, Text in Art” from the project “Imaginary Museum” was brought out. In 2018 a book based on the materials of the exhibition “Swaddling, bandaging, wrapping in Art” was released. This publication is a part of the catalog of the project “Imaginary Museum” and includes materials from the exhibition “Stairs in Art”, held in the Centre of Mikhail Chemiakin in 2019.
This exhibition, like all the Centre's thematic exhibitions, is complemented by a series of one-man shows by contemporary artists on the given theme. These shows are the result of open international juried competitions conducted in the period leading up to the thematic exhibition, and serve to involve artists more profoundly in the research and creative process of “Mihail Chemiakin’s Musée Imaginaire“.
