32 silver bromide emulsion prints on 30 x 40 cm cement slab, readymade wooden ladder, mirror, neon light, steel wire, bandage and stone.
Heaven Ladder is a complex and visually compelling installation combining a web of references and thoughts at the frontiers of metaphysics, using a very pure plastic idiom and, paradoxically, displaying an impressive economy of means. Gao Bo sets up a ladder wrapped in levitating gauze strips combined with two large neon arrows, surrounded by portraits printed on stone slabs. All this hangs above a large broken mirror. Gao Bo draws inspiration both from biblical references to Jacob’s Ladder and from votive ladders that can be found everywhere in Tibet. They symbolise the desire for spiritual elevation on the part of an entire people, shown here in prayer in the portraits floating around the ladder. However the presence of a mirror on the ground and the inverted arrows leads to an interpretation that is not only one of ascent: elevation carries within it the conditions for falling, and this is what characterises the human condition and the dynamic that drives the life cycle. Gao Bo’s entire body of work is imbued with a constantly returning to-and-fro motion, expressed in particular by constant tension between elevated forms of spirituality and sometimes extremely brutal materiality.