Fence Becomes a Ladder
Artist: Marina Razheva
Date: 2002; continued in 2024–2025
Type: Installation, ready-made, action
Materials: Wooden picket-fence section; printed text on textured paper
Dimensions: Variable, depending on the realization
Work description
The Angle of View began as an installation built around a simple proposition: a fence can become a ladder when turned 90 degrees. An object associated with separation and obstruction can acquire a different function through a change in its orientation.
The original installation combined a real wooden picket-fence fragment with a printed text presented under glass. The work continued through later realizations, including an action in which a fence section was turned into a ladder and a situation in which no intervention was needed: the fence was already positioned in a way that allowed it to be recognized as the work.
The object remains materially ordinary. What changes is its relation to movement, function and perception.
Versions and realizations
2002 — Yekaterinburg, Russia
Exhibition: Eurasian Syndrome, Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg.
The original installation consisted of two parts:
- a theoretical or written component, printed on textured paper and presented under glass;
- a real wooden picket-fence fragment, approximately 120 cm long, hung vertically on a wall.
The 2004 exhibition catalogue lists the work’s dimensions as 120 × 60 cm (p. 77). The work is documented on p. 59, with a photograph, the artist’s explanatory text and a biographical note.
The catalogue records the original title as Угол зрения или Забор становится лестницей [The Angle of View, or a Fence Becomes a Ladder].
2024 — Slovenia
Exhibition: Crossing Borders, Beka 9.
For this presentation, a suitable fence section could not be found in Hungary. The artist purchased a section of fencing at OBI and sent it to the exhibition.
Photographic documentation of the fence section.
The Crossing Borders booklet lists dimensions of 180 × 80 cm.
2024 — Káptalanfüred, Hungary
At an art camp, the artist found a discarded fence section, turned it so that it could be read as a ladder, and photographed the result.
Dimensions were not recorded.
2025 — Rácalmás, Hungary
In an abandoned building, the artist encountered an old fence section already positioned vertically. No physical transformation was made. The artist placed a label beside the fence, recognizing the existing situation as the work.
Dimensions were not recorded.
Artist’s statement, 2002
Original Russian:
«Противоположности превращаются друг в друга, если сменить угол зрения».
English translation:
“Opposites turn into each other if you change the angle of view.”
The statement was reproduced in Yulia Filippova’s newspaper article about the 2002 exhibition.
Publications and press
Exhibition catalogue
Евразийский синдром: каталог международной выставки [Eurasian Syndrome: Catalogue of the International Exhibition]. Yekaterinburg: Ural University Press, 2004. 96 pages, illustrated.
The catalogue documents the work on pp. 59 and 77. The exhibition took place in 2002; the catalogue was published in 2004.
View the catalogue documentation.
Newspaper article
Yulia Filippova, «Границы отменяются…» [“Borders Are Abolished…”], Уральский рабочий [Ural Worker], 24 August 2002.
Archived in the Russian Art Archive Network (RAAN), Yeltsin Center, Marina Sokolovskaya Collection. Document ID: YC-MS-L36280.
The date is recorded in a handwritten note on the preserved newspaper clipping. The issue and page numbers have not been identified.
The article discusses the work in the context of the exhibition and its questions of identity and cultural boundaries. It identifies the artist and the work by its original Russian title, quotes the artist’s statement, and offers the journalist’s own interpretation of the fence becoming a ladder.
Exhibition booklet
Crossing Borders, Beka 9, 2024.
The booklet documents the 2024 presentation and lists dimensions of 180 × 80 cm.
Documentation held in the artist’s archive
- Exhibition catalogue: Eurasian Syndrome, 2004, pp. 59 and 77.
- Newspaper clipping: Yulia Filippova, Ural Worker, 24 August 2002.
- Exhibition booklet: Crossing Borders, Beka 9, 2024.
- Photographic documentation: Káptalanfüred, 2024.
- Photographic documentation: Rácalmás, 2025.
Related website pages
Project: The Angle of View
Story & Archive: Traces of the Work