Stairs (These Stairs Can Be Climbed) 1974

Alice Aycock's "Stairs (These Stairs Can Be Climbed)" is a sculptural installation playing with architecture, perception, and possibility. Aycock approaches artmaking as a process of investigation, using simple materials to build complex structures that defy easy categorization. The wooden planks, raw and unadorned, retain their natural texture, emphasizing the physicality of the medium. You can almost smell the sawdust. There's a kind of primal beauty in the repetition of the steps, in how each one builds upon the last to reach an impossible, unreachable height. See how the lines of the grain run in different directions, creating a subtle rhythm across the surface. I love the conceptual resonances of this piece and its emotional impact. Aycock sets off a chain of associations; she encourages us to reflect on the act of climbing, striving, and the inherent limitations of human ambition. Like a Sol LeWitt structure, it reduces form to its bare essentials. The title itself—"These Stairs Can Be Climbed"—adds another layer of ambiguity, underscoring art's role in questioning and re-imagining our everyday experiences.