Rockman

Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, wrote that his delightfully outlandish story was intended to inform his readers—and not simply to amuse them.  Much like Swift’s pint-sized Lilliputians, the ensemble of diminutive characters that form Tom Otterness’ beguiling Rockman enact an allegorical social drama.  The artist uses his signature figures here and elsewhere to produce public monuments that are at once visually accessible, materially engaging, and rich in meaning.

Rockman incorporates themes explored by other distinguished authors besides Swift.  For example, the construction of the rock colossus itself clearly evokes Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, a seventeenth-century treatise that discusses how governing bodies are formed to safeguard against social chaos.  Unlike the gloom-inclined Hobbes, Otterness approached this potentially grim topic with a sharp wit.  His precocious animals also share a bond with those described in George Orwell’s Animal Farm (first published in 1948), which reads both as a children’s fantasy and as a political allegory.

Along with these well-incorporated literary themes, Otterness’ Rockman weaves together an intriguing diversity of visual allusions.  For today’s viewers, his amusing figures most directly evoke the cartoon characters of animation giants like Disney and Warner Brothers, along with illustrations for children’s fables (note the tortoise and hare), and icons of pop culture.  For instance, one smiling and diligent figure, carrying a large rock on her back, appears to be a conglomeration of the Pillsbury Doughboy, film legend Marlene Dietrich (with top hat and cigar), and Sisyphus—the mythological Greek king condemned by Zeus to carry a heavy bolder throughout eternity.

This combination of current, popular imagery with historical and mythological references is typical in Otterness’ work.  In addition to contemporary cartoon figures, his industrious Rockman characters recall the busy farmers, merchants, and workers that populate several centuries of European genre painting—from Pieter Bruegel’s jovial peasants to Edgar Degas’ robust laundresses.  His anthropomorphic animals also evoke much older artworks, such as the twelfth-century Japanese scroll-paintings that comically recast the contented aristocrats, warriors, and monks of the late Heian period as frolicking rabbits, frogs, and monkeys.

Over time, the noses and tails of the public’s favorite Rockman figures have become highly polished, rubbed to a brilliant shine by the curious hands of the courthouse’s visitors. Otterness considers these marks evidence of a democratic interaction with his work.