Macbeth Horse
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Commentary
This image puns on the famous Macbethian quote, “Is this a dagger which I see
before me?”, when Macbeth is tormented by a ghostly dagger, the symbol of his
crime of ambition. AK takes the role of cruel fate and similarly taunts a
horse, who looks somewhat like Bullwinkle the moose, and carries the same naïve,
Moose-ian gaze. Mouth agape, this poor animal is transfixed by a vegetable,
mane standing on end, eyes glazed over not unlike a well-sugared carrot. AK is
playing with his audience in a similar way. He includes the words of the title “Macbeth
Horse” in the image itself. This servers as a “carrot” to us, for revealing the
title tells us what this image means, or does it? Do our senses reveal the
truth to us? Do visual cues deliver intended meaning, or create thoughts and
feelings that subvert, twist and oppose the artist’s original intention? AK can
create an image, and hang it before us, but he cannot control what it means to
us, in the same way we can’t be sure that what we see with our eyes is true. The
odd suspension of the horse’s head out of the frame, with no supporting body, adds
to this sense of intellectual uncertainty. The almost sickly pink color recalls
picture-book flesh color, and the sing-songy moral lessons of that ilk, such as
“Dick and Jane,” and so many visual aids used to teach children a generation
ago. These images of a boy, girl and a dog were perpetrating as truth, when
they displayed a warped, Saccharin world that is not only unlivable, but
thankfully non-existent. For an even darker take on "pink as evil," check out Francis Bacon, the most ambitious and disturbing painter of the last half of the 20th century.
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Image and title "Macbeth Horse" copyright 2000 by the artist