Knocking on heaven’s door

Neons and aluminum structure 230x210x50

Fences, walls, fronts and barbed wires are ownership systems or devices designed for limiting space. They define the ownership limits and protect the right of ownership. This status is an injunction that distinguishes the singular from the ordinary. « If the protection of nations and private ownership is not the sole purpose for erecting walls and barriers, one can speculate on the psychological needs and desires underlying their construction. (…) The dividing line created by fencing suggests a sacred relationship, an immediate link between the political and theological. The place of worship is always enclosed or cloistered. »

Knocking on heaven’s door is essentially a questioning on the status of walls or fences. It involves a neon structure of a trellis and barbed wire, reminiscent of a prison fence. Its display in a showcase immured by breeze blocks confers to it the status of a sacred artwork but also, paradoxically, of a trapped, enclosed defence system exhibited for all to see. The structure is a defence symbol but also the instrument of private ownership of which mankind is the holder. As law texts stipulate : « (private) ownership being a sacred and inviolable right means that nobody can be deprived of it except, obviously, where legally decreed public necessity dictates differently, and on condition fair compensation is concluded beforehand. But this refers to man’s ownership, therefore involving man alone, as opposed to a topic, a machine or an animal. He is, in this way, a citizen in the eyes of the law. »