03 January - 06 February Drunk on the Moon
Adam Laerkesen’s arresting installation reads like a still life. It is set out in a clear theatrical manner that seems to me, allegorical. And Adam agrees, inviting the obvious question – so what’s the allegory? To which he replies, “I like to leave that a bit open-ended.”
“There’s
a drunken figure on the left,” he explains - I can see it sprawled across a lectern,
drunk on prayer and wine, “and a female
voice, among the woods under a full moon” he continues. And yes there is a malevolence
lurking for me in the form of a classically draped ironing board she-wolf,
tensed and ready to pounce. Ridden by a cloven-footed tree ladder I wonder? “No” advises Adam, “it’s just a hoof that I
carved at the end of a piece of wood as a conclusion”.
After a while our conversation turned to the mythological figures Bob Dylan refers to in his songs. Which left me wondering, when later that night I found myself listening to “Isis” on Dylan’s, Desire album.
“I married Isis on the fifth day of May – but could not hold on to her very long – so I cut off my hair and rode straight away – for the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong…Isis, oh Isis, you mystical child – what drives me to you is what drives me insane – I still can remember the way that you smiled - on the fifth day of May in the drizzling rain.”
Google
the song’s meaning and you will read – “Isis is a mystery, and the story makes
no real sense – it is just a set of irrational images without the sequence that
we so crave. And that’s why it works. It tempts you to think there is a
meaningful sequence, but as you try to grab it, it walks away.”
Or as a friend of mine pointed out recently, the
trick to meaning-fullness is in the gaps you leave between things for the
viewer’s mind to fill in later. It keeps the work alive and assures its
relevance to an audience. As a method it took Dylan from speed freak rock star
to Nobel Laureate and it seems to work for Adam Laerkesen as
well.
Tony Twigg
