The Trial

Labyrinth

In my imagination a labyrinth is such a convoluted, complicated structure that anyone who ends up in it will have trouble getting out again, except perhaps by following Ariadne's thread.

Surrealism as a whole may be described as labyrinthine: many puzzles, many questions, no answers, no exit.

I wanted to approach the topic directly: by painting a labyrinth. Something like a House of Mirrors rather than an antique structure or a playful Rococo garden, but it proved impossible to represent convincingly.

I took refuge in a manageable but unreal structure, open so that one can look into it, but without an exit, even Ariadne's thread is useless here.

Maybe you are familiar with something like this from your dreams?

With Kafka it became "The Trial".

(Text: Wolfgang Lettl)