Kader Attia’s new work of art is inspired by the religious story of Jacob’s vision of angels ascending to heaven, as well as by the space itself which is steeped in history as a former library.
Inside his extraordinary library made specially for the Whitechapel Gallery lies a warmly lit cabinet of curiosities above which a vast mirror reflects a beam of light, transforming it into rungs of a ladder to infinity. A series of marble busts of wounded soldiers from World War I and repaired North African wooden learning boards (ketab) observe this towering structure of bookshelves filled with centuries of accumulated human knowledge.
Collages, sculptures, wall drawings and multi-media installations reflect on processes of repair, which the artist sees as an underlying principle of development in culture as in nature.
