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A.M.Rossell the Laocoon project exploded view Das Laokoon projekt
Industrialised angel as a Trojan Horse?
One of the most interesting things about the Laocoon group is how it links in our consciousness to images of the crucifixion. The Serpent as the physical embodiment of satan, and the open breast of Christ, with arms splayed is reflected in the main figure of Laocoon. Indeed the filmmaker Ken Russell brought these images together in a particularly lurid and sexually riotous delirious scene in „the lair of the white worm“
In german „der Biss der Schlangenfrau“
We see the snake on the cross in the sign of Mercury; two snakes twining around a pole, we see it depicted in Byzantine art and the idea of a serpent on a cross or pole dates back to the time of Moses who lifted the bronz image as symbol of the power of redemption, and christ eludes to this himself.,
„And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up“. John 3:14
that is: through death, through becoming Death redeemed the representative of Man, Christ Jesus, mankinds "original sin" enabling assent to the heavens after death, and thus all men have this way open. That this late Hellenistic work uses the image of a Boa constrictor as „Punishment“ for going against the gods will, very much mirrors the Image in the crucifixion of Christ taking on, living through, becoming one with, and redeeming the earthly death forces on the cross.
The image of Laocoon and the image of the crucifixion are parallel In as much as both depict God-Man, and Priest-man breaking with set laws and rules of obedience to pass through death to forge a new way for mankind. Laocoon sees the trojan horse as a trap urging his fellow trojans not take it in. he is of the old Hierophant system whose allegiance is to the gods and their wishes. The gods wish that mankind develops an individuality, and so must the Athenians triumph over the Persians. But Laocoon is disobedient and as such, contrary to his landsmen, the Persians, is an individual, with an individual ego. Because of this he suffers the fate of being an outcast, and traitor, and must see his world crumble and perish.
But my work there is no anguish and in fact there isn’t much anguish in the original, indeed recent debate points to the furrowed brow of Laocoön as being at odds with what is physiologically possible- there is on his brow a state of surrender and calm at the moment that death is accepted . look to at the body of the son on the left is there not a hint of the dead christ on Maria’s lap in the Pieta of Michelangelo is there not the equipoise of Donatellos David?
So the whole feeling of this work ist he calm acceptance of death as a portal to salvation.
But to my work, i am not trying to take up the religious theme, rather my process is rather a mystery to me. I wanted to do a large work, and we have a pond and lots of dragonflies they often end their lives with their wings worn and useless seeking warmth on the windowsill of my large studio. sometimes their thorax is cocked to one side and i saw the image of the crucifix and the image of Anton Gormley’s Angel of the North and as i set to do a dragonfly i thought of the rigid industrialised wings of Gormley’s angel, and i thought of death, and i started to make. I didn’t think of Laocoon at first, i thought of the dragonfly and crucifix, but as i worked on the thorax and the wings it was clear that, as it was made of plywood, ( i was reading about the British fighter-plane, the mosquito, also constructed of plywood with struts and fuselage rings of steam-bent wood and also looking at images of crashed planes with their fuselages/Thoraxes and wings bent at odd angles) I would make it as if it were also Constructed and flown. Somehow i thought, „but surely that is Laocoon! And it hangs there as if presented as a decoy or Model hiding something mechanical; indeed a trojan horse.
So where does my interpretation differ? Well, Firstly it is an exploded projection, view the group is not interwoven but seperate. and of course we have no depiction of human figures, but rather it is in the humorous rendering of the two sons; the two „Wormshoe Sons“ I believe they have a wonderful doleful pathos about them. It is as if they are the watchers but they have the emotion, they have the heart that the central dragonfly crashed angel and the snakes don’t have. I feel they are the speakers for my reality my true state after i have left this mortal coil?
They are more than just a little kidney and heart shaped, but they also look a little like boots with a collar but as if the foot isn’t in the shoe, and the shoe is a remembrance? Perhaps one should leave it undecided.