Hanging man. For whom the bell tolls
Digital sketch December 2023
A sketch created using Procreate on an iPad.
The sketch shows a bell. Inside the bell, in the place where the clapper should be, is a hanging man.
The image came to me spontaneously while I was looking at a bell. I think that part of the idea may be that the bell marks out time, announcing the hours,and therefore marks out life.
Bells are also tolled to mark out death.
The idea of people replacing the clappers in bells has since been used in the work Seaward Venice by Florentino Holzinger in the Austrian pavilion in the 2026 Venice Biannale. Holzinger’s work features real people dangling upside down in real bells.
There is a small sculptural version of my bell that features a real bell and a model of a person.