Rather than an exhibition, Jorge Perianes proposes a great work of art. The building itself – with all its historical significance – is part of the exhibition. The artist has intervened its structure by drilling into its walls and opening it up to the outside. Those of us who are regular visitors of the Kiosco Alfonso are well aware of the strength of its two large interior stairs. If the outside is largely dominated by an eclectic modernism, the inside is a large container in which those two staircases stand out. Jorge breaks up lines, conceals angles and redesigns itineraries…He carries out all this through dozens of ladders of different sizes, some of them in unlikely positions, sometimes broken, some of them splintered…They are simple, fragile, uncompromising ladders.

The ladder is a universal object. Every culture has developed its own and they all have found a similar solution. Long before cultural globalisation, the ladder was a tool recognised everywhere. At the same time, it has an allegorical significance that goes as far as the ancient times, perhaps since the Bible story about Jacob’s Dream; this explains why artists have represented it so widely. Jorge Perianes’s installation highlights this power of suggestion.