Wittgenstein’s Ladder
“My propositions are elucidatory in this way: He who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder after he has climbed up on it.)
One of the final passages in Wigggenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus makes a proclamation about describing the limitations of language within the boundaries of itself, and the need to transcend this corrupt system. I applied his metaphor in the form of this sculpture with some added commentary. The structure top of the platform critiques high minded architecture, elevated by ivory tower academia. I find the grandiose utopian ideology pervading much modernist architecture elitist, with its implicit attitude of understanding the best interest of the population at large. The opaque glass prevents viewing inside, symbolizing the unknowable and unobtainable ideal. The ladder is bound by modernisms staunch belief in absolutes, which continues to dominate our perspective.