World Art Utopia

Window with Ladder – Too Late for Help

A brick wall fragment with a single window floats high in the air above a grassy lot, with a white ladder leaning up to it.
Artwork FileNew Orleans, USA

Window with Ladder – Too Late for Help

Seen2019

Leandro Erlich · 2008 · Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans Museum of Art (first shown in the Lower Ninth Ward)

Photo: photographer not named in our source, as published on Street Art Utopia (Sculptures You (Probably) Didn’t Know Existed).

A ladder leans up to a single window held high in the air, with no house around it. Leandro Erlich made it in 2008 for Prospect.1, New Orleans’ first biennial, and placed it on an empty lot in the Lower Ninth Ward, three years after Hurricane Katrina flooded the neighbourhood. Source Source Source Checked

Seen 2019 — NUVO Magazine’s Summer 2019 feature on NOMA’s sculpture garden (published 20 June 2019) shows the work there in a photo by Richard Sexton; the camera date is not given. The New Orleans Museum of Art lists it in its collection (accession 2009.21) and gives its location as the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Source Source Reported

💡 5 things to know

  1. An escape route that came too lateF Newsmagazine read the work as a belated escape route for residents who were stuck on upper floors and in attics when the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina. Source Reported
  2. The ladder matches the floodThe same review says the height of the ladder is roughly equal to the depth of the floodwater. Source Reported
  3. One block from the breached leveeThe Christian Science Monitor placed the work one block from the breached levee that flooded the Lower Ninth Ward. Source Reported
  4. The support is hidden undergroundNOMA’s record lists a steel underground structure along with the metal ladder, fiberglass and aluminium frames. Source Checked
  5. Now in a museum collectionNOMA bought the work (museum purchase, accession 2009.21) and lists it in its Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Source Checked

📍 Where it is

Today: the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden of the New Orleans Museum of Art, City Park, New Orleans. In 2008–09 it stood on an empty lot in the Lower Ninth Ward. We have not checked Street View for it, so the button opens the map. Source Source Source Source Checked

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🗓️ Sightings

  1. 200826 Nov

    F Newsmagazine review, Lower Ninth Ward

  2. 200812 Dec

    Christian Science Monitor report

  3. 200914 Jan

    Art21 tour of the Lower Ninth Ward

  4. 201920 Jun

    NUVO: in NOMA’s sculpture garden (photo Richard Sexton)

Green stamps mark dated photographs; amber stamps mark records or reports; red stamps mark loss. Publication dates are not camera dates.

🗞️ In the sources

F Newsmagazine26 November 2008

“The height of the ladder is roughly equal to the depth of the floodwater.”

Read the source →

Art21 Magazine14 January 2009

“Leandro Erlich erected a ladder which leans on a window in mid-air, hovering as if it was ripped from a wall.”

Read the source →

✅ The facts

Artist
Leandro Erlich Source Source Source Checked
Title
Window with Ladder – Too Late for Help (NOMA); the 2008 press wrote “Window and Ladder – Too Late for Help” Source Source Source Checked
Year
2008 Source Checked
First shown
Prospect.1 New Orleans, on an empty lot in the Lower Ninth Ward (biennial open until 18 January 2009) Source Source Source Checked
Materials
Metal ladder, steel underground structure, fiberglass, aluminium frames Source Checked
Size
177 × 63 in (449.58 × 160.02 cm) Source Checked
Collection
New Orleans Museum of Art, museum purchase, accession 2009.21 Source Checked
Location
Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans Source Checked
Our photo
Shows the work on an open grassy lot with a long concrete wall behind it, which fits the Lower Ninth Ward setting of 2008–09; our 2025 post captioned it Montevideo, Uruguay, which we found no source for. Photographer and date not known to us Source Source Unconfirmed

🔗 Related

All sources & image credits

Last checked: 1 November 2026. How we verify art