“I can’t explain the origin
of the image. I’ve had it in mind for so long. I sometimes
connect it with my very first memories of Italy, even before
I started school,” explains Herz. The work is a silo
of cement rings with a construction-site ladder sticking
out of the top. A displaced and disquieting object. A new
building in an archeological site? Or is it too a remnant
of the past? Why is the ladder inside and hence unusable?
The work recalls In Erwartung der Ernte (Awaiting
the Harvest). Commissioned by a road construction company
and produced at Engen-Welschingen, it constitutes a parody
of public sculpture. Herz installed three ladders in a field,
each one near a pear tree. They are like those used for
harvesting but made of steel and anchored to the ground.
The image is paradoxical. Like Jacob’s ladder, Herz’s
ladders lead up to the heavens. They are useless because
they do not reach the trees. They may reach them when they
have, hopefully, grown