WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER II & II

NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

HELLERAU 2011 - DRESDEN 2012

NORBERT

FRANCIS

ATTARD

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER II

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER II BY NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

INSTALLATION: METALIC SPRAY ON WOOD, 94 LED BULBS & LED STRIP LIGHTING

GEBÄUDE ENSEMBLE DEUTSCHE WERKSTÄTTEN HELLERAU, GERMANY

GALERIE SAAL 9-11 DECEMBER 2011

The ladder is at once a passageway and a membrane. In the middle of the ladder we are nowhere. We are neither here nor there. We are in a state of emergence. Again Attard brings us to the place of one who is comfortable talking about the in-between. He’s comfortable with what is possible there. With this work, a ladder fashioned out of light, Attard reaches out into the fields of philosophy, symbology, even his own history to discuss the mythology of progress. Once again a conundrum arrises in Attard’s research. Wittgenstein used the ladder to illustrate the need to discard of a way back from current achievement or understanding. Once one achieves a thing, climbs up the ladder so to speak, it is imperative to kick out the ladder from underneath oneself in Wittgenstein’s perspective. Conversely in Malta, Attard’s home, the Great Seige of 1565 brings other connotations to the table. When the Moors attacked the redoubt of

Valletta they used ladders to scale the high fortress walls surrounding the city. Progress of another sort is representable by the ladder here, not through a war from within oneself, as the quest for knowledge often is, but a war brought about from a foreign enemy. One could argue that war is, at least in the perspective of the victor, a progressive act with potentiated space the gain of the conquest. The ladder intact and crafted of light thus could be arguably be a symbol of victory. With Wittgenstein’s Ladder Attard is trying his hand at symbological construction, the establishment of new symbols for a new time.

ROBERT PETERSON Curator, Elsewhere Museum, Greensboro, NC., USA.

INSTALLATION OF THE LADDER: CHERRY PICKER SPONSORED BY UKA+HAUKE

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER III NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

ROOM + STYLE

MESSE DRESDEN 2012

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER III NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

ROOM + STYLE

MESSE DRESDEN 2012

Curator’s StatementNorbert Francis Attard is no traditional artist. He is in between the lines of concept, context, reflection and highly aesthetic realization. A word is a word, a structure is a structure, emphasis is emphasis. And it is not. Attard breaks expectations by fulfilling them aesthetically and disappointing at the same time a linear explanation: what you see is not what you get!

The installation „Wittgenstein’s Ladder”, as a splendid example of Attard ́s method, deals with the famous theory of language of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951).

In his early work “Tractatus logico-philosophicus” (TLP) released in 1921 for the first time Wittgenstein develops a picture theory of language. From his point of view the logical structure of language mirrors the logical structure of the world. However, this relation between language and world – this is the common ground of the logical form – cannot be expressed adequately by linguistic means, because language cannot be examined quasi from the outside; it is not possible to speak about language by using language. Wittgenstein gains the opinion that indeed we are not able to speak about the relation between language and world but that this relation appears within corresponding sentences.

Thus, Wittgenstein declares: “My sentences elucidate in a way that the one who understands me realizes in the end the senselessness when he climbs by them – on them – over them. (So to speak he must throw away the ladder after climbing it.)”

Wittgenstein challenges the reader to grasp the impossibility to say anything meaningful about the relation between language and world using the language of the TLP (or any other language). Actually,

the meaningful is in the end what cannot be said. From here Wittgenstein concludes his legendary final sentence of the TLP: “Whereof we cannot speak about we must remain silent upon.”

Norbert Attard ́s work manifests the structure (of the ladder as a sculpture) and its dissolution by the changing light. “What you see is what you get”. But this is not the truth about a collectively agreed idea of reality: although the bulbs follow and represent the shape they transcend its meaning by the permanent alteration of the colors and moods.

“Wittgenstein ́s Ladder” was realized three times by Attard, for the first time in Saint-Flour, France, in 2010. In 2011 it was part of the finalist exhibition of the “Cool Silicon Art Award” in Dresden. In both cases the ladder was installed on the wall or façade of an historic building, with a strong architectural impact. In 2012 Attard installed the work on a huge wall of wooden pallets as an indoor work during the “room & style” fair in Dresden. This latest variant with its dimensions and the haptic and organic aspects of the wooden pallet wall perhaps represented best the linguistic mysticism of Wittgenstein ́s critical concept: “Someone who doesn’t know English hears me say on certain occasions: “What marvelous light! [Welch herrliche Beleuchtung!]” He guesses the sense and now uses the exclamation himself, as I use it, but without understanding the three individual words. Does he understand the exclamation?“

Keeping this in mind Norbert Attard’s work with its “luminous” aesthetics functions as a philosophical critical comment about the boundaries not only of a linguistically logical capability to depict but also of a scientific and technical usability of perception and cognition: what you see is what you see. What you get is what you are able and willing to get in a historical, social and cultural context. That ́s it. Fortunately.

DR. MARTIN MÜLLER Artist and curator based in Dresden, Germany

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER III METALIC SPRAY ON WOOD, 94 LED COLOUR CHANGING BULBS, LED STRIP LIGHTING, 260 WOODEN PELLETS, DRESDEN MESSE, DRESDEN, GERMANY, 2012

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER III METALIC SPRAY ON WOOD, 94 LED COLOUR CHANGING BULBS, LED STRIP LIGHTING, 260 WOODEN PELLETS, DRESDEN MESSE, DRESDEN, GERMANY, 2012

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER IIIVENUEROOM+ STYLE, MESSE DRESDEN, GERMANY

CURATORSANDREA HILGERDR. MARTIN MÜLLER

INSTALLATION & PHOTOGRAPHYNORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

WOODEN PELLETSSPONSORED BY PALETTENSERVICE THOMAS MÜLLER

LIGHTING OF INSTALLATIONSTEFFEN HUHNTHILO HAUPT

ASSISTANTSKONRAD SEIDLITZFRANKA HÄSSNERKATRIN WEBER

WOODWORK AND METALLIC SPRAYINGSAVIOUR GAUCI, GOZO, MALTA

LED COLOUR CHANGING BULBS CALLEJA & SONS LTD, MALTA

LED STRIP LIGHTING SMART CREATIONS, MALTA

WITTGENSTEIN’S LADDER IICOOL SILICON ART AWARD JURYPROF. ELIZABETH HOAK-DOENINGANDREA HILGERDR. MARTIN MÜLLERHELMUT WARNECKEPROF. DR.-ING THOMAS MIKOLAJICK

INSTALLATION & PHOTOGRAPHYNORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

CHERRY PICKERSPONSORED BY UKA+HAUKE

ASSISTANTSKONRAD SEIDLITZMIKE SÜHRMAIK KUNERTMARCO BRANDAUFRANKA HÄSSNERKATRIN WEBER

WOODWORK AND METALLIC SPRAYINGSAVIOUR GAUCI, GOZO, MALTA

COLOUR CHANGING LED BULBS CALLEJA & SONS LTD, MALTA