THE STAGING AREAPE T E R L I N DE BU S K

Hols tebro Kunstmuseum

T H E STAGI NG A R EA

PE T ER L I N DE BU SK

hlstb_plb_forsats.indd 1 12-12-2012 03:32:06

TOMOR ROW A I N’T PROM I S E D TO NO ON E

Mit første møde med Peter Linde Busks værker foregik i et lillebitte galleri i London først i 2011. Busk havde dækket væggene med sine malerier og tryk. Der var også en række keramiske værker, strøet som klynger af hvidt lys gennem rummet. Jeg ved ikke, hvad jeg havde forventet – sikkert en udstilling af malerier – men ikke denne komplicerede koreografi. Værkerne, og de figurer der optrådte i dem, råbte ad hinanden, skændtes, kæmpede om opmærksomhed. Der var imidlertid ét, der fremstod stærkest i hele dette slagsmål. I maleriet Neurotic Imposters, 2010 [fig. 44], sivede tre mænd, som spøgelser, fra det, jeg forstår som Busks karakteristiske skumring; en urolig, regnfuld grund af samme farve som tyndt mudder. I en anden kunstners hænder kunne figurerne sagtens være forblevet begravet i skidtet. Men Busk havde forvandlet dem til hieroglyffer og overkradset deres konturer med gult kridt. Med deres vilde blikke, foroverbøjede kroppe og gale hoveder var der ingen tvivl om, at de var neurotiske, men deres bedrageri var sværere at definere: måske forsøgte de at overbevise os om, at de var konger. Til sidst besluttede jeg, at de fremstod som forrykte fupmagere; kaotiske kræfter som skabte uro mellem alle andre elementer i udstillingen med deres vrede blikke, som det var umuligt at undslippe.

Kort tid efter jeg havde set udstillingen, begyndte jeg at besøge Busks atelier i Berlin. Det var, lige som galleriet, et forholdsvis lille sted, tæt pakket med halvfærdige lærreder, arkivskuffer fyldt med arbejder på papir og den samme slags keramikting. Næsten alle malerierne indeholdt mærkelige, forskruede mennesker. Lige som hans bedragere stirrede de ud i forskellige grader af færdiggørelse og ophidselse, og de syntes alle sammen at stille forskellige krav til Busk: nogle skulle omarbejdes, andre måtte han helt opgive,

T R E KONGERANTHONY BYRT

“Sandheden er en hund, der skal i hundehuset; den bliver pisket ud af stuen, mens Lady kan

stå og stinke ved pejsen.” Narren, Kong Lear.

“Hvis du går løs på Kongen, må du hellere ramme plet.” Omar Little, The Wire.1

61Tomor row a i n’t p rom i s e d t o no on e, 2011

F ig. 30

I ’ve got no expectations to pass through here again, 2011 F ig. 31

og endnu andre havde han bare at holde sig helvedes langt fra, så skøre var de. Samlet dannede de en slags arena i rollen som både publikum og medvirkende for at understøtte Busks hovedrolle: kunstneren der arrangerer handlingen fra midt i rummet. Skønt der er en masse kærlighed og humor i det, er der også en del grusomhed. Det er for eksempel sjældent at se Busks aktører sammen i en gruppe – han holder dem som regel adskilt fra hinanden.2 De er ofte deforme: naturens fejltagelser med vinger der stikker ud af ryggen, næb der vokser ud af deres ansigter, kluntede luffer i stedet for fødder. Mange er krøblinge med manglende eller skæve lemmer. Busk har også for vane at sætte dem solidt fast på sine flertydige overflader, som om der foregår en stadig kamp mellem hans behov for at holde dem i skak og deres eget vanvittige ønske om at slippe væk.

Mens jeg iagttog Busk i hans atelier, fandt jeg ud af, at han er en rastløs altmuligmand. Netop som jeg fornemmede, at han var ved at nå et gennembrud med en serie malerier, opdagede jeg ved mit næste besøg, at de var blevet stuvet af vejen og erstattet af collager eller enorme træsnit. Trods disse skift er han dog altid, og ubønhørligt, maler. Med dette mener jeg, at alt, hvad han laver, er drevet af malerens opfattelse af verden: en forståelse af forholdet mellem materialitet og billede, og en teatralsk evne til at integrere fysikalitet, sex, mytologi og historie i ét enkelt illusorisk rum, hinsides tid. Få kunstnere er i stand til at opnå noget sådant på så raffineret vis. Men endnu færre kan håndtere dét, der er Busks væsentligste kendetegn: hans ganske særlige form for kaotisk, moralsk forløsning.

I ’V E G OT NO E X PEC TAT IONS TO PA S S T H ROUGH H E R E AGA I N

Hen imod slutningen af mit ophold i Berlin, var Busk i gang med en enorm collage, som forestillede en ensom krøbling, sat sammen af hundredvis af papirstrimler, der lænede sig til en stok. Han så ud, som om han enten skulle have været på en anstalt eller var i færd med at kæmpe sig frem ad en støvet vej. I stedet fremstod han på en vild baggrund, som svingede mellem et kompakt, mangefarvet harlekinmønster, snoede kruseduller, afrikanske masker og semi-konstruktivistiske kompositioner lavet af snor. Med sin højde på over 1,8 m dominerede collagen rummet. Trods dens enorme fremtræden skænkede jeg den ikke mange tanker; den forekom blot at være det seneste øjebliks galskab i Busks atelier – et værk lavet af rester, som måske og måske ikke humper ud i verden på et senere tidspunkt.

Efter jeg kom tilbage til New Zealand, dukkede denne runkne skikkelse imidlertid ofte op i mine tanker. Efter flere år væk fra mit hjemland var jeg lamslået over, hvordan dets koloniale fortid stadig inficerer alting. Jeg var især optaget af en mand ved navn Rua Kenana, Maori-profet og medlem af Tuhoe-stammen på den centrale del af nordøen først i det 20. århundrede [fig. 32]. Rua mente, han var spået til at efterfølge krigerhøvdingen Te Kooti, som havde grundlagt Ringatu-religionen (en hybrid mellem kristendom og traditionel Maori kosmologi). Rua hævdede også, at han var reinkarnationen af Kristus,

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Big Chief on St. Joseph’s, 2011 F ig. 33

sendt ud for at lede sit folk til det forjættede land. Han grundlagde New Jerusalem – en bosættelse for hans menighed med sine egne love og sociale strukturer baseret på hans åbenbaringer og særegne fortolkninger af Biblen. Bosættelsens vigtigste bygning var “Hiona” (Zion): en toetages rund bygning, der fungerede som kirke, parlament og domhus. Bygningens udvendige udsmykning var lige så usædvanlig som dens runde form: en frise af blå klør og gule ruder. Allerede før Rua havde Ringatu-troen fastlagt spillekortsymboler som mnemoteknikker – klør stod for Kongen der skal komme og Helligånden, mens ruder repræsenterede bosættelsens hellige skjulte sten: Rua erklærede, at han var i besiddelse af en af de tolv diamanter, som var fordelt mellem Israels spredte stammer.3

Efterhånden som bosættelsen voksede, kom Rua til at udgøre et problem for folk uden for dens grænser. Maorier, som ikke var blandt hans følgesvende, så ham som en leder, der virkede uden for de traditionelle stammestrukturer, og det gjorde ham vanskelig at styre. For Pakeha (europæiske newzealændere) var han hverken en rigtig “vild” eller

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Rua Kenana (1869-1937)Fig. 32

Announcing your plans i s a god way to hear God laugh, 2010 F ig. 34

en fuldt integreret kolonial undersåt. Til sidst blev truslen ved hans ind-imellem-hed for meget for myndighederne. Den 2. april 1916 rykkede en stor politistyrke anført af en voldelig irsk strisser ved navn John Cullen ind i New Jerusalem for at arrestere Rua og tilintetgøre bosættelsen. Under slagsmålet blev to maorier dræbt og flere betjente såret. Den dag i dag ved ingen, hvem der løsnede det første skud. Det blev stort set enden på Ruas regeringstid som profet-konge, men han spøger stadig i newzealandsk kultur som lederen, der levede hinsides maorisk og vestlig moral og kom tæt på at opnå absolut forløsning fra begge. Han var et forskruet spejlbillede af en kultur på tærsklen til moderniteten. Med sit lange, krøllede hår og Kristus-lignende skæg fremstod han som en messiasskikkelse. Ikke desto mindre var han ofte ulasteligt klædt i vestligt jakkesæt, og sjældent uden en stok, hvilket både var udtryk for europæisk krukkeri og et ekko af maorikulturens talestave (som markerer en talers “mana” eller autoritet). I sidste ende var Rua et produkt af sammenstødet mellem det moderne og det mytiske; et halvguddommeligt væsen, der opererede uden for kolonimagtens kontrol som seer, fupmager og magtudøver, og hvis aura truede parallelle rigers mentale grænser.

ANNOUNCING YOUR PLANS IS A GOOD WAY TO HEAR GOD LAUGH

Jeg prøver ikke på at antyde, at der skulle være en eksplicit sammenhæng mellem den vakkelvorne skikkelse med stok på Busks enorme collage og denne for længst afdøde Frelser fra den anden side af kloden. Men jeg antyder, at han er et resultat af lignende energier, fordi den kamp mellem modernitet og myte, som Rua repræsenterer, og den deraf følgende symbolik og kaos, er af afgørende betydning i Busks arbejde.

Hos Busk finder dette sin forløsning på grænsen til en anden Ny Verden: det amerikanske Vesten. Mytologien om det Vilde Vesten er fyldt med skikkelser som Rua – narrekonger hvis moralske forskydning og sandhedsåbenbaringer tvang et ubarmhjertigt samfund til at se på sit eget spejlbillede. Det bemærkelsesværdige her er ikke så meget Busks fascination af det Vilde Vesten i sig selv, men hans fascination af nutidens genfortolkninger heraf. Hans snørklede titler giver vigtige ledetråde i den henseende, fordi mange af dem er direkte citater fra TV-serien Deadwood. Serien udspiller sig omkring den virkelige by af samme navn under guldfeberen, og det farverige persongalleri omfatter en færdig skarpskytte-forvandlet-til-falskspiller, en sexgal enke fra Østkysten, en grublende sherif, en blodtørstig værtshusholder og hans forgudende håndlanger, en slesk lille hotelejer, en gal prædikant, en luder med et hjerte af guld, en ubestikkelig landsbylæge samt selveste Calamity Jane, fuld og for evigt sørgende over tabet af Wild Bill Hickock. Efterhånden som handlingen udvikler sig, lukker murene sig, og Vestens enorme vidder indskrænkes til et intimt provinsielt, shakespearsk teaterrum, hvor sprog, moral, sex og vold strækkes til det yderste.

Busks værker er befolket med lignende figurer: truende outsidere der lider af den samme klaustrofobi. Der er for eksempel landevejsrøvere som den grublende og

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Cloak and Dagger, 2011 F ig. 3568

forklædte skikkelse i Cloak and Dagger, 2011 [fig. 35]. I Trinkteufel, 2012 [fig. 36] tumler en flok drukkenbolte gennem mørket, glade lige nu, men formentlig i stand til at gribe til vold, hvad øjeblik det skal være. Truslen om vanvittig religiøs fanatisme ses i Can You Please Let Me Go to Hell the Way I Want To?, 2009 [fig. 37], hvor vi konfronteres med en vild mand med langt hår i undertøj, kappe og høj hat. Vi tilbydes en snusket, uhyggelig skøge i Thy Wretched Wife, 2011 [fig. 45]. I They Come in Steel that’s Bright and True, 2011 [fig. 43] stirrer en vanvittigt udseende, piberygende guldgraver ud på os. Og i Big Chief on St Joseph’s, 2011 [fig. 33] ser en “vild” i ceremoniel klædedragt ud til at være klar til at springe ud af rammen.4 Indrømmet, ingen af disse figurer fremstår som tydelige, genkendelige portrætter, og deres absurditet peger lige så meget i retning af James Ensor, Cobra og Art Brut som det Vilde Vesten. Busk ville være den første til at vedkende sig disse påvirkninger, men der er ikke desto mindre en stærk parallel mellem hans egne visioner og skuepladsen i Deadwood. Begge er udtryk for vores tids behov for myter; i en kultur hvor alt er overeksponeret og konstant til skue, tillader disse arketyper os at omfavne skyggerne igen og på ny forbinde vores legemlighed med vores moral, mens vi famler gennem mørket.

En af de vigtigste begivenheder i Deadwood – mordet på Wild Bill Hickock i Saloon No. 10 – er baseret på kendsgerninger. Hickocks morder, Jack McCall, var en ung guldgraver, som han havde slået ved pokerbordet aftenen forinden. McCall havde forhøjet Hickocks indsats, men, da han ikke havde nok jetoner, havde han i stedet kastet en pose guldstøv på bordet. Hickock vandt omgangen, guldet blev vejet, og McCall havde stadig for lidt. I stedet for at acceptere et gældsbrev insisterede Hickock på, at den unge mand tog tilbage til sin lejr og skaffede det udestående beløb, hvilket han gjorde. Næste dag vendte han tilbage til Saloon No. 10 og skød Hickock, som var midt i en hånd, i baghovedet. Da det skete, sad Hickock angiveligt med en ret god hånd: to par, essere og ottere (i pokersprog er denne hånd siden blevet kendt som “død mands hånd”). Mere interessant er dog den hånd, som han havde haft umiddelbart forud for denne. Hickock havde mistet hele sin stak jetoner ved at ramle et ‘Fuldt hus’ ind i ‘Fire ens’. Om der nogensinde har været et forvarsel om, at grimme ting var i vente, må dette absolut være det. Hickock – som ikke kunne modstå afstraffelse – havde netop forhøjet sin kredit hos ejeren af No. 10, da McCall trådte ind i baren.

Denne begivenhed er en af Vestens grundlæggende historier, og den giver noget af forklaringen på, hvorfor poker er så dybt forankret i amerikansk mytologi. Poker beskrives ofte ukorrekt som en amoralsk aktivitet, men som enhver seriøs spiller vil sige, er det først og fremmest et spil, hvor det kommer an på dygtighed. I modsætning til andre former for hasardspil beherskes spillet fuldstændigt af spillerne. Det er også den absolutte sandheds spil: én spiller vil altid have den stærkeste hånd. Problemet for spillerne er, at disse sandheder er skjulte, fordi de ikke kan se hinandens kort, og derfor må de handle ud fra ufuldstændig viden (til forskel fra skak, for eksempel, hvor spillerne hele tiden kan se alle brikker og deres placering). Dette betyder, at det mange gange er den dårligste hånd, der vinder: en spiller, der er i stand til at bluffe, kan sagtens slå en

Can you please let me go to hell the way I want to?, 2009 F ig. 37

Trinkteufel, 2012 F ig. 36

L’homme aux semelles de vent, 2010 F ig. 38

modstander med tre konger. Selv en spiller, som sidder med en høj ‘Flush’ kan begynde at se dæmoner, afhængig af hvordan hans modspillere opfører sig. I stedet for amoralsk er poker altså snarere et spil hinsides moral, og det var præcis derfor, det trængte ind i sjælen på Vestens pionerer, guldgravere og vagabonder. Det satte lovløsheden i deres daglige livsførelse i relief, simpelthen fordi de slap for det irriterende valg mellem rigtigt og forkert. Uden for pokerspillet afhang alt af moralske beslutninger. I poker behøvede spillerne ikke bekymre sig om det. Alt, hvad de behøvede, var at overbevise, lokke, narre eller chikanere deres vej til sejr.

Poker udgør en meget stor del af Busks liv og tankegang og ligeledes af mit. Grunden til at jeg besøgte hans udstilling i London, var, at jeg havde mødt ham et par måneder tidligere, ikke i en kunstsammenhæng, men som modspiller ved et pokerbord. Selvom spillet nu sluger meget af min opmærksomhed, var jeg på det tidspunkt en novice. Rent faktisk var de eneste to erfarne spillere ved bordet Busk og spillets vært, Aaron Bogart.5 Jeg genkendte med det samme den alvor, som Busk behandlede spillet med; med sine skift mellem et stirrende udtryksløst ansigt, drillende bemærkninger og fræk selvsikkerhed var han den første, der fik mig til at forstå, at poker, mere end noget andet, er en scene at optræde på. Jeg har siden erfaret, at han overfører disse teatralske aspekter direkte i sit arbejde. Hans figurer er netop den slags surrealistiske banditter og ballademagere, som man kan forvente at møde ved et pokerbord. Ligesom modspillere skjuler de lige så meget, som de viser. Og med et fint greb afspejler formen ofte indholdet: med deres underlige hovedbeklædning, kostumer og flade kroppe fremstår de som spillekort. Deres stødende frontalitet og konfrontationssøgende isolation fra hinanden betyder, at rummet mellem dem – det rum vi optager som beskuere – er det, der betyder mest: et skjult bord som spydige bemærkninger, trusler og en skrækkelig masse bluf flyver hen over.

L’HOMME AUX SEMELLES DE VENT

Engang i starten af 1905 begyndte harlekiner at dukke op i Picassos malerier. Der er forskellige forklaringer på, at det sker: Picasso havde mødt en omrejsende trup af akrobater; hans voksende interesse for parisisk teater, og at han muligvis havde set I Pagliacci (Bajadser), en populær opera om blodtørstige Commedia dell’arte-skuespillere; et ønske om at bruge teatralske aspekter og bevægelse til at bryde den Blå Periodes blodløse kvælertag. Den mest overbevisende forklaring finder vi dog i John Richardsons fremragende biografi om kunstneren: indflydelsen fra digteren Guillaume Apollinaire. Ifølge Richardson, opfordrede Apollinaire Picasso til at forestille sig selv i forskellige roller, især roller som kunne forsyne ham med en “outsider” personlighed. Richardson skriver:

Efter omkring et års venskab holdt Apollinaire, som påstod at have lært om magi af alferne i Fagne, et spejl, i form af et digt, op for Picasso og viste ham hans spejlbillede

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Conseil Judicia ire, 2010 F ig. 4074

som Harlequin Trismegistus, en dæmonisk troldmand. Digteren kendte de gamle vallonske legender om ‘her-lequin’ – en sjæl der er sluppet bort fra helvede.6

Picassos tidlige harlekinværker udforskede alle aspekter af denne foranderlige arketype. Han præsenterer en udtryksløs og foruroligende androgyni i Akrobat og ung harlekin (Acrobate et jeune Arlequin), 1905 [fig. 39]. I skærende modsætning hertil er der varme tegninger af harlekin som ung far. Desuden bliver han til en deprimeret parisisk dranker i Au Lapin Agile. Og han portrætteres som lirekassemand (Hurdy-Gurdy) med uplejet skæg, spilledåse og blød hattepuld; en skikkelse hvis udsvævende og voldelige liv synes at have sat sig i furerne i hans hærgede ansigt.

Picassos moderne harlekin har sine rødder i renæssancens hofnarre og Shakespeares

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Akrobat og ung harlekin, 1905Fig. 39

Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke, 2011 F ig. 41

elisabethanske tåber; figurer som kunne handle og tale ustraffet, fordi deres kostumer og absurde optræden gav dem den beskyttelse, der var nødvendig for at holde et spejl op for et samfunds herskende elite. Da hofnarrene begyndte at forsvinde, blev deres satiriske rolle overtaget af Commedia dell’arte, en form for omrejsende teater som skød op rundt om i Europa i det 16. århundrede, og hvor harlekin var en central figur. Hans karakteristiske dragt med sit mønster af romber signalerede, at han var en kaotisk kraft i spillene: liderlig, destruktiv, charmerende eller ondskabsfuld, afhængig af hans humør. Denne dragt blev særkendet for Picassos egne harlekinmalerier. Dens afgrænsede farvelagte romber er en underdebatteret forløber for hans senere kubistiske facetter, der, meget lig harlekins udtalelser, var forsøg på at blotlægge den levede erfarings hemmelige sandheder. Men lige så vigtigt var det, hvordan Picasso ikke alene afbildede harlekin, men også blev ham: en undergravende fupmager med kreative, næsten magiske kræfter. Stående på kanten til moderniteten tog han denne mytiske arketype op som en måde at bearbejde den foranderlige verden omkring ham. Det var en identitet, som forblev hos ham resten af hans liv.

Busks værker er fyldt med referencer til harlekin. Hans vanvittige kostume dukker op igen og igen som en umiddelbar markør af anderledeshed, vanvid eller banditstatus. I L’homme aux semelles de vent, 2010 [fig. 38], for eksempel, står vi over for en vinget skikkelse i harlekindragt, med arme dekoreret med et sjalsmønster, der ser ud til at ville folde sig ud, og benene dækket af en latterligt stribet trikot.7 Hans let bøvede ansigt har to gigantiske Picasso-ske mandeløjne, og han står på en platform op mod en mørk baggrund, som sagtens kunne være en scene. Fordi denne grund er så svær at bestemme, flades hele rummet ud til et enkelt plan, hvilket får skikkelsen til at se ud som en udklipsfigur, der er sat fast på overfladen. Som følge heraf markerer harlekins romber, at han er optrædende, men de spiller desuden en vigtig strukturel rolle, idet de giver skuespillerens ellers fraværende krop form. Det er interessant, hvordan disse figurer, når de dukker op i det virkelige rum, som de gør i Busks keramiske værker, kollapser. Conseil Judiciare, 2010 [fig. 40], for eksempel, har mange af særkenderne ved Busks harlekiner, med dens skøre hat og forvredne lemmer, og alligevel er den sunket ind i sig selv; en lavstammet version af dens malede slægtninge. Men, som titlen antyder, er den akkurat lige så villig til at give os forrykte råd, fanget et eller andet sted mellem galning og én, der afslører ubehagelige sandheder.

FUCK ’EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE

Alt dette – Rua Kenana, Deadwood, poker, Picasso, harlekin – forankrer Busks værker i et bestemt historisk øjeblik, nemlig forrige århundredskifte hvor sammenstødet mellem kulturer og fremdriften mod modernitet gjorde, at man tog narren til sig som en form for mytisk svar på forandring. Men hvis det er det hele, ville Busks værker være forfærdelig nostalgiske. Faktisk er hans omfavnelse af fupmageren udtryk for en

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The Exile’ s return, 2011 F ig. 42

helt igennem vigtig og nutidig holdning, fordi narren er post-atomalderens altafgørende arketype. Lige siden 11. september er vores frygt for forrykte konger, som er i stand til at forårsage total udslettelse, blevet erstattet af en anden type paranoia over for vanvittige mænd, der lemlæster os, fordi de udløser kaos med mere beskedne terrorhandlinger. Vi er stive af skræk for den usynlige skikkelse; det skjulte ansigt som leende konspirerer mod os. Det uvirkelige ved deres handlinger i vores virkelige rum, og deres frydefulde dans hen over moralske grænser, gør dem både skræmmende og fascinerende.

Og alligevel er vi også afhængige af narren som sikkerhedsventil for en overpresset og stadig mere konservativ kultur. Man behøver blot se på de seneste kulturelle manifestationer af dette, såsom Batmans Joker. I forhold til Busks værker er figuren Omar Little i tv-serien The Wire mere relevant (Busk bruger en af Omars mest ikoniske replikker, “You come at the King, you best not miss” (“Hvis du går løs på Kongen, må du hellere ramme plet”), som titel på sin første soloudstilling på Galleri Christina Wilson i 2006). Omar er landevejsrøver, tyv og enspænder, nøjagtig som falskspillerne i det amerikanske Vesten. Hans ansigt er arret: en uforklarlig deformitet som vidner om en voldelig fortid. Og i det homofobiske miljø, som kendetegner storbyens sorte bandekultur, er det en form for deformitet i sig selv, at han er bøsse (da Avon Barksdale udlover en dusør for Omar, kalder han ham en “pikslikker”; ikke bare som en nedsættende betegnelse, men som en konstatering af en kendsgerning som han væmmes over). Omar er også jokeren i flokken: en figur som udløser kaos alene ved sin truende fremtræden, men som ikke desto mindre også er den, der giver overordentligt velformulerede indblik i andre personer.

Narrens mangfoldige roller som sandhedssiger, underholder og trussel er helt tydelige i Busks værker. I Cloak and Dagger, 2011 [fig. 35] står en forklædt skikkelse mod en baggrund af giftig gul regn. Hans lange frakke er et rod af dobbelt skravering, og hans ansigt er så deformt, eller tilsløret, at det er umuligt at vide med sikkerhed, om han står med siden til eller ansigtet vendt mod os. Han kunne lige så let være en eller anden skuespiller eller skabekrukke som kriminel eller terrorist. Uanset hvad rummer han en skjult trussel om konspiratoriske handlinger. I The Exile’s Return, 2011 [fig. 42], et pragtfuldt træsnit, er dette endnu tydeligere. Vi ser endnu en figur indhyllet i en kappe, hvis griselignende hoved, som enten er en maske eller en stor deformitet, forsvinder i Busks virvar af riller. I den ene hånd holder han noget, som enten kunne være en stok eller et sværd; et vedhæng der er så tyndt, at det kan tjene begge formål – støtte, men også gennembore. På det ene ben ses harlekins rombemønster, mens den anden fod er stukket ned i en lang sko med en komisk krølle på spidsen. Han er flad, rå og ikke helt menneskelig og bærer sin historie både i titlen og i de målbevidste bevægelser; har måske netop selv fået retfærdigheden udmålt og er på vej til at levere sin egen.

For mig opsummerer The Exile’s Return hvorfor Busks værker er så betydningsfulde. Til trods for alle deres hentydninger til historien og myter er hans figurer absolut nutidige. De er banditter og narre, hver og én. De agerer uden for samfundets og teknologiens grænser, de træder uden for tid og rum for at holde enetale, terrorisere, konspirere, håne

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They come in steel that’s bright and true, 2011 F ig. 43

1 Jeg er Lara Strongman umådelig taknemmelig for at minde mig om dette citat, som ændrede alting. 2 Busks udstilling i London havde titlen “Currahee,” som er en tillempning af et Cherokee-ord, der betyder “stå alene”. Det 506. luftbårne regiment i den ameri-kanske hær bruger det som kælenavn for sine medlem-mer, som en henvisning til regimentets motto “vi står alene sammen”. Regimentet var involveret i flere afgø-rende slag under 2. Verdenskrig og blev udødeliggjort i TV-serien Kammerater i krig (Band of Brothers). “Cur-rahee” er titlen på seriens første episode.3 Patricia Te Arapo Wallace, “Jack, Queen, King: Play-ing Cards as Influence of Empire?”. Revideret indlæg fra konferencen The New Zealand “Empire” Costume and

Textile Symposium, Napier, juni 2009, 9-10. Fundet på Academia.edu.

4 Dette er imidlertid ikke en titel hentet fra Dead-

wood, men fra tv-stationen HBOs drama Treme, som handler om tiden efter orkanen Katrina. 5 Bogart har skrevet udførligt om forholdet mellem poker og Busks malerier. Se Aaron Bogart, “All In”, in: Signe Glahn (ed.), No Pasaran, MONITOR, Rome 2012, 4-37.6 John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I: The

Prodigy, 1881 – 1906, Random House, New York 1991, 334.7 Titlen på dette værk, som kan oversættes til “manden med såler af vind”, var Paul Verlaines kælenavn for Ar-thur Rimbaud. De to digtere indledte et lidenskabeligt forhold først i 1870’erne, hvor Verlaine engang skød og sårede sin unge elsker.

eller få os til at le. Den langsomme proces med at male dem frem forekommer som en pervers form for kærtegn, som næring af grimhed og deformitet i en verden, der lovpriser, og sætter pris på, overfladisk fuldkommenhed. Selvom de er naglet fast i deres rum, har de ikke desto mindre symbolsk og psykisk kraft til at krybe ind i vores, hvor de udnytter vores frygt, men de giver os også en meget tiltrængt forløsning. I sit ateliers stille teater overvåger Busk frembringelsen af dybsindige og foruroligende øjeblikke; simple manifestationer af anderledeshed som i lige grad udløser små bølger af kaos og forkvaklet skønhed.

bragt i Artforum International, frieze og Art World.

My first encounter with Peter Linde Busk’s work came in a tiny London gallery in early 2011. Busk had covered the walls with his paintings and prints. There was also a cluster of ceramics, dotted like clumps of white light through the space. I don’t know what I’d expected – an exhibition of paintings probably – but not this complicated choreography. The works, and the figures contained within them, called out to each other, argued, jostled for attention. But out of that tussle, one emerged on top. In the painting Neurotic Imposters, 2010 [fig. 44], three men seeped, like ghosts, from what I have come to understand as Busk’s characteristic gloam; a restless, rainy ground the colour of thin mud. In another artist’s hands, the figures may well have stayed buried in the muck. Busk though, had turned them into hieroglyphs, scrawling their outlines with yellow crayon. With their wild eyes, bent bodies and mad crowns, they were unquestionably neurotic, but their imposture was harder to define: maybe they were trying to convince us they were kings. In the end, I

decided they had the presence of demented tricksters; chaotic forces that destabilised the relationships between every other element in the show with their inescapable glare.

Not long after seeing that exhibition, I started to visit Busk’s Berlin studio. Like the gallery, it was a relatively small space, packed tight with half-finished canvases, archival drawers filled with works on paper, and similar ceramics. Almost all of the paintings contained strange, twisted people. Like his imposters, they stared out in various states of completion and agitation, each one seeming to place different demands on Busk: some needed to be reworked; others scrubbed out altogether; others stayed the hell away from, such was their looniness. Collectively, they formed a kind of theatre-in-the-round as both audience and players to Busk’s lead role: the artist orchestrating the action from the centre of the room. Although there is a lot of love and humour in this, there is some cruelty too. It’s rare, for example, to see Busk’s actors in a group – he usually keeps them isolated

THREE KINGSA N T HON Y BY RT

“Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when Lady the Brach may stand by the fire and stink.”

Fool, King Lear.

“You come at the King, you best not miss.” Omar Little, The Wire.1

TOMORROW AIN’T PROMISED TO NO ONE

83Neurotic Imposters, 2010

Fig. 44

possession of one of the twelve diamonds allocated to the scattered tribes of Israel.3

As the settlement grew, Rua presented those beyond its boundaries with a problem. For Maori who didn’t follow him, he was a leader operating outside traditional tribal structures, and that made him difficult to contain. For Pakeha (European New Zealanders), he was neither a full “savage” nor a fully assimilated colonial subject. Ultimately, the threat of his in-between-ness became too much for the authorities to tolerate. On 2 April 1916, a large group of police, led by a strongarm Irish copper called John Cullen, entered New Jerusalem to arrest Rua and break up the settlement. In the fracas, two Maori were killed and several officers were wounded. To this day, no one knows who fired the first shot. It was essentially the end

of Rua’s reign as the prophet king, but he still haunts New Zealand culture, as a leader who lived beyond Maori and Western morality and came close to achieving absolute release from both. He was a twisted reflection of a culture on the cusp of modernity. With his long, curly hair and Christ-like beard, he manifested a Messianic presence. And yet he was often immaculately turned out in Western suits, and rarely without a cane, which was both a European affectation and an echo of the talking sticks used within Maori culture (these designate a speaker’s “mana,” or authority). Rua, ultimately, was the product of the modern colliding with the mythic; a semi-divine being operating beyond colonial controls as a seer, trickster, and wielder of power, whose aura threatened the psychic borders of parallel Kingdoms.

ANNOUNCING YOUR PLANS IS A GOOD WAY TO HEAR GOD LAUGH

I’m not trying to suggest that the wonky, cane-carrying character in Busk’s giant collage has anything explicitly to do with this long-dead Saviour from the bottom of the world. But I am suggesting that he is the result of similar energies; because the battle between modernity and myth that Rua represents, and its ensuing symbolism and chaos, are central to Busk’s work.

For Busk, this finds its release in a different New World frontier: the American West. Wild West mythology is full of figures just like Rua – jester-kings whose moral displacement and visions of truth forced a ruthless society to look at its own reflection. What is significant here is not so much Busk’s fascination with the Wild West per se, but with its contemporary reinterpretations. His ornate titles provide

crucial clues in this regard, because many of them are direct quotes from the HBO television series Deadwood. Centred around the real-life town of the same name in the gold rush, the show’s elaborate cast includes a washed-up sharpshooter-turned-cardsharp, on oversexed East Coast widow, a brooding sheriff, a murderous publican and his doting henchman, a fawning little hotelier, a mad preacher, a whore with a heart of gold, an incorruptible town doctor, and Calamity Jane herself, drunk and forever mourning the loss of Wild Bill Hickock. As the action develops the walls close in, and the vast expanses of the West are reduced to the intimacy of a provincial, Shakespearian theatre in which language, morality, sex and violence are all stretched to their human limits.

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from each other.2 They are often deformed: mistakes of nature with wings springing from their backs, beaks growing from their faces, awkward flippers for feet. Many are crippled, with missing or crooked limbs. Busk also has a habit of fixing them stiffly to his ambiguous surfaces, as though there’s an ongoing battle between his need to contain them and their own mad desire for escape.

Watching Busk in his studio, I learned that he is a restless tinkerer. Just as I felt he was starting to make some breakthroughs with a batch of paintings, I would arrive to find them

Towards the end of my time in Berlin, Busk was working on a massive collage. In it, a lone cripple, assembled from hundreds of strips of paper, leaned on a cane. He looked as though he should either have been in an asylum or struggling down some dusty road. Instead, he was set against a wild background that veered between a tightly stapled, multi-coloured Harlequin pattern, swirling doodles, African masks, and faux-Constructivist compositions made from string. At more than six feet tall, the collage dominated the room. Even with its huge presence, I didn’t give it much thought; it seemed just the latest moment of madness in Busk’s studio – a work crafted from leftovers that may or may not limp out into the world at some later time.

But when I returned to New Zealand, I often found this wizened figure in my thoughts. After several years away from my home country, I had become transfixed with the way its colonial past still infects everything. I was particularly preoccupied with a man called Rua Kenana, an early-

stacked away, replaced by collages or giant woodcuts instead. But despite these shifts, he is always, and unrelentingly, a painter. By this I mean that everything he makes is driven by a painter’s view of the world: an understanding of the relationships between materiality and image, and a theatrical ability to embed physicality, sex, myth and history in a single illusory space, outside of fixed time. Few artists are capable of managing this with such subtlety. But fewer still manage anything like Busk’s most defining characteristic: his peculiar form of chaotic, moral release.

I ’VE GOT NO EXPECTATIONS TO PASS THROUGH HERE AGAIN

twentieth century Maori prophet and member of the Tuhoe tribe in the central North Island [fig. 32]. Rua believed he was the prophesied successor to the warrior-chief Te Kooti, who had founded the Ringatu religion (a hybrid between Christianity and traditional Maori cosmology). Rua also claimed to be a reincarnation of Christ, sent to lead his people to the Promised Land. He founded New Jerusalem – a settlement for his followers with its own laws and social structures based on his revelations and idiosyncratic interpretations of the Scriptures. Central to the settlement was “Hiona” (Zion): a two-storeyed circular building that served as church, parliament, and court. Just as unusual as its round structure was its external decoration: a frieze of blue clubs and yellow diamonds. Even before Rua, the Ringatu faith had established playing card symbols as mnemonics – the club stood for the King Yet to Come and the Holy Ghost, while the diamond represented the sacred hidden stone of the settlement: Rua stated that he was in

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player holding a strong flush can start seeing demons, depending on the behaviour of his opponents. So rather than being amoral, poker is a game beyond morality, and this is exactly why it seeped into the psyches of the West’s pioneers, prospectors and vagabonds. It offered a perfect foil to the lawlessness of their daily lives, simply because it took away the vexing choice between right and wrong. Outside the poker game, everything rode on moral decisions. Inside it, players didn’t need to care. All they needed to do was convince, cajole, trick or bully their way to a win.

Poker is a very big part of Busk’s life and thinking, as it is mine. The reason I had gone to see his show in London was because I’d met him a couple of months earlier, not in an art context, but as an opponent at a poker table. Although the game now consumes much of my attention, at the time I was a novice. In fact, the only two experienced players at the table were Busk and the

game’s host, Aaron Bogart.5 I immediately recognised the seriousness with which Busk treated the game; moving between a dead-man’s stare, smart-alec gibes and a brash confidence, he was the first person to help me understand that poker is, above all else, a platform for performance. I’ve since learned that he transposes this theatricality directly into his work. His characters are exactly the kinds of surreal outlaws and troublemakers one might expect to encounter at a poker table. As opponents, they hide as much as they show. And in a nice twist, form often mirrors content: with their strange headgear, costumes, and flattened bodies, they have the presence of playing cards. Their abrasive frontality and confrontational isolation from each other means that the space between them – the space we occupy as viewers – is what matters most: an unseen table across which taunts, threats, and an awful lot of bluffing fly.

L’HOMME AUX SEMELLES DE VENT

Some time around the start of 1905, harlequins started to appear in Picasso’s paintings. There are various explanations for this: Picasso encountering a travelling troupe of acrobats in Paris; his increasing interest in Parisian theatre and the possibility that he saw I Pagliacci, a popular opera about murderous Commedia dell’arte performers; a desire to use theatricality and movement to break the anaemic stranglehold of the Blue Period. But John Richardson, in his brilliant biography of the artist, provides the most compelling explanation: the influence of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. According to Richardson, Apollinaire encouraged Picasso

to imagine himself in different roles, in particular those that might provide him with an “outsider” persona. Richardson writes that:

After a year or so of friendship, Apollinaire, who claimed to have learnt about magic from the elves of the Fagne, held a mirror, in the form of a poem, up to Picasso and showed him his reflection as Harlequin Trismegistus, a demonic magician. The poet knew the old Walloon legends about ‘her-lequin’ – a soul escaped from hell.6

Picasso’s early Harlequin works explored every aspect of this shape-shifting archetype.

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Busk’s work is littered with similar characters: threatening outsiders suffering from the same claustrophobia. There are, for example, highwaymen, like the brooding and disguised figure in Cloak and Dagger, 2011 [fig. 35]. In Trinkteufel, 2012 [fig. 36], a group of drunks stumble through the dark, happy for now, but presumably capable of violence at any moment. The threat of crazed, religious fanaticism makes its appearance in Can You Please Let Me Go to Hell the Way I Want to?, 2009 [fig. 37], in which a wild man with long hair confronts us in his underwear, a cape and a top hat. We’re offered a bedraggled, gruesome harlot in Thy Wretched Wife, 2011 [fig. 45]. In They Come in Steel that’s Bright and True, 2011 [fig. 43], a mad-looking, pipe-smoking prospector stares out at us. And in Big Chief on St Joseph’s, 2011 [fig. 33], a “savage” in ceremonial dress looks ready to leap out of the frame.4 Granted, none of these figures take the form of obvious, locatable portraits, and their absurdity points as much to James Ensor, Cobra and Art Brut as the Wild West. Busk would be the first to admit these influences, but there is nonetheless a strong parallel between his own visions and the theatre of Deadwood. Both demonstrate our contemporary craving for myth; that in a culture where everything is over-exposed and permanently on display, these archetypes allow us to embrace shadows again, and reconnect our physicality with our morality as we fumble through the dark.

One of Deadwood’s most important events – the murder of Wild Bill Hickock in the Number 10 Saloon – is based on fact. Hickock’s killer Jack McCall was a young prospector he’d beaten at the poker tables the night before. McCall had called Hickock’s bet, and, not having enough chips, had

thrown in a bag of gold dust in lieu of the shortfall. Hickock won the hand, the gold was weighed, and McCall was still short. Rather than accepting an IOU, Hickock insisted the young man return to his camp and raise the outstanding amount, which he duly did. The next day, he returned to the Number 10 Saloon and shot Hickock, who was mid-hand, in the back of the head. At the time, Hickock was allegedly holding a pretty good hand: two pair, Aces and Eights (in poker folklore, this is known as the “Dead Man’s Hand”). More interesting though, is the hand that had immediately preceded it. Hickock had lost his entire stack by running his Full House into Four of a Kind. If ever there were a premonition of bad things to come, this would surely be it. Hickock – a sucker for punishment – had just extended his credit with the Number 10’s proprietor when McCall entered the bar.

This event is one of the foundational stories of the West, and goes some way towards explaining why poker is so deeply embedded in American mythology. Poker is often incorrectly portrayed as an amoral activity, but as any serious player will tell you, it is primarily a game of skill. Unlike other forms of gambling, the players themselves are entirely in control of the game. It is also a game of absolute truth: someone is always holding the strongest hand. The problem for its players is that those truths are hidden because they can’t see each other’s cards, and as a result, they have to act with imperfect information (this is different from chess, for example, where the players can see every piece and its location at all times). This means that the worst hand often wins: a player holding nothing but air can easily beat an opponent with three Kings. Even a

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Barksdale calls Omar a “cocksucker”; not just as a pejorative term, but as a statement of fact that disgusts him). Omar is also the Joker in the pack: a figure who unleashes chaos through the mere threat of his appearance, and yet who also offers extraordinarily eloquent insights into other characters.

The jester’s multiple roles as truth-teller, entertainer and threat are clearly evident in Busk’s work. In Cloak and Dagger, 2011 [fig. 35], a disguised figure stands against a background of toxic yellow rain. His long coat is a mess of cross-hatching, and his face is so deformed, or covered, that it’s impossible to know definitively whether he is standing side-on or facing us. He could just as easily be some actor or poseur as criminal or terrorist. Either way, he carries the hidden threat of conspiratorial action. The Exile’s Return, 2011 [fig. 42], a magnificent woodcut, makes this even clearer. We see another cloaked figure whose pig-like head, which is either a mask or some gross deformity, disappears into a mess of Busk’s gouges. In one hand, he carries what could either be a cane or sword; an appendage so thin it serves both purposes – to support, but also to pierce. On one leg, we see the diamond pattern of Harlequin, while the other foot extends into a long shoe with a comedic turn at its tip. He is flat, brutal and not-quite human, carrying his history both in his title and his purposeful movements; returning, perhaps, from having justice meted out to him to deliver some of his own.

The Exile’s Return, for me, sums up why Busk’s work is so important. For all their allusions to history and myth, his figures are utterly contemporary. They are outlaws and jesters, every one of them. They operate

FUCK ’EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE

All of this so far – Rua Kenana, Deadwood, poker, Picasso, Harlequin – anchors Busk’s work in a particular historical moment; the turn of the last century, when the collision of cultures and the drive towards modernity saw an embrace of the jester as a kind of mythic response to change. But if that’s all there was to it, Busk’s work would be horrendously nostalgic. In fact, his embrace of the trickster is a profoundly urgent and contemporary position, because the jester is the essential archetype of the post-nuclear age. Ever since 9/11, our fear of mad kings bringing about total annihilation has been replaced by a different paranoia about crazed men maiming us, unleashing chaos through more modest acts of terror. We’re petrified of the invisible figure; the hidden face who plots against us, laughing. The unreality of their acts within our real space, and their blissful dance across moral boundaries, makes them both terrifying and fascinating.

And yet we also rely on jesters as release valves for an over-pressurised, increasingly conservative culture. One only needs to look at recent cultural manifestations of this, such as Batman’s Joker. More relevant to Busk’s work is the figure of Omar Little from The Wire (Busk used one of Omar’s most iconic lines, “You come at the King, you best not miss,” for the title of his first solo exhibition with Galleri Christina Wilson in 2006). Omar is a highwayman, robber and loner, exactly like the cardsharps of the American West. His face is scarred: an unexplained deformity that points to a violent past. And in the homophobic world of black, urban gang culture, his gayness is a kind of deformity in itself (when issuing a bounty on him, Avon

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He offers up a blank and troubling androgyny in Acrobat and Young Harlequin (Acro-bate et jeune Arlequin), 1905 [fig. 39]. In stark contrast, there are warm drawings of Harlequin as a young father. He also becomes a depressed, Parisian drinker in Au Lapin Agile. And he is portrayed as Hurdy-Gurdy Man with a scraggly beard, music box, and soft crown; a figure whose history of debauchery and violence seems buried in the lines of his gaunt face.

Picasso’s modern Harlequin had its roots in Renaissance court jesters and Shakespeare’s Elizabethan fools; figures who were able to act and speak with impunity, their costumes and absurd performances giving them the protection needed to hold a mirror up to a society’s ruling elite. As court jesters started to fade away, their satirical role was taken up by the Commedia dell’arte, a form of travelling theatre that sprang up around Europe in the sixteenth century, in which Harlequin was a central figure. His characteristic suit of diamonds signalled him as a chaotic force within the plays: libidinous, destructive, charming or vicious, depending on his mood. This suit became the hallmark of Picasso’s own Harlequin paintings. Its diamonds of delineated colour provide an under-discussed precursor to his later Cubist facets, which were, much like Harlequin’s pronouncements, attempts to expose the hidden truths of lived experience. But just as important was the way Picasso not only portrayed Harlequin but also became him: a disruptive trickster with

creative, near-magical powers. Standing on the edge of modernity, he took up this mythic archetype as a way to process the changing world around him. It was an identity that stayed with him for the rest of his life.

Busk’s work is full of references to Harlequin. His crazed costume appears again and again as an immediate signifier of otherness, madness, or outlaw status. In L’homme aux semelles de vent, 2010 [fig. 38], for example, we’re confronted with a winged figure in a Harlequin suit, with arms decorated in unfurling paisley and absurdly striped tights covering his legs.7 His vaguely bovine face supports two giant Picasso-esque almond eyes, and he stands on a platform against a darkened background that could easily be a stage. Because that ground is so hard to define, the entire space is flattened to a single plane, making the figure seem like a cut-out pinned to the surface. As a consequence, Harlequin’s diamonds designate him as a performer but also have an important structural role, giving the actor’s otherwise absent body form. It’s interesting that when these figures spring into real space, as they do in Busk’s ceramics, they collapse. Conseil Judiciare, 2010 [fig. 40], for example, has many of the hallmarks of Busk’s Harlequins, with its crazy hat and twisted limbs, and yet it has slumped into itself; a stumpy version of its painted relatives. But, as its title suggests, it’s just as prepared to offer us crazed advice, caught somewhere between madman and a revealer of uncomfortable truths.

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Thy wretched wife, 2011 F ig. 45

beyond society, beyond technology, stepping outside time and space to soliloquise, terrorise, conspire, pour scorn or make us laugh. The slow act of painting them into existence seems a perverse sort of caress; a nurturing of ugliness and deformity in a world that praises, and prizes, easy perfection. Pinned down in their spaces, they nonetheless have

the symbolic and psychic power to creep into our own, tapping into our fears but also providing us with a much-needed release. In the quiet theatre of his studio, Busk oversees the production of profound and troubling moments; simple acts of otherness that release ripples of chaos and twisted beauty in equal measures.

1 I am immensely grateful to Lara Strongman for reminding me of this quote, which changed everything. 2 Busk’s London show was called “Currahee,” which is an adaptation of a Cherokee word meaning “stand alone.” The 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the United States Army uses it as a nickname for its mem-bers, as a pointer to the regiment’s motto “we stand alone together.” The regiment was involved in several crucial World War II battles, and was immortalised in the HBO series Band of Brothers. “Currahee” is the first episode’s title.3 Patricia Te Arapo Wallace, “Jack, Queen, King: Playing Cards as Influence of Empire?”, Amended conference paper presented at The New Zealand “Em-

pire” Costume and Textile Symposium, Napier, June 2009, 9-10. Retrieved from Academia.edu.

4 This, however, is not a title taken from Deadwood, but from HBO’s post-Hurricane Katrina drama, Treme. 5 Bogart has written eloquently about the relation-ship between poker and Busk’s paintings. See Aaron Bogart, “All In”, in: Signe Glahn (ed.), No Pasaran, MONITOR, Rome 2012, 4-37.6 John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I: The

Prodigy, 1881 – 1906, Random House, New York 1991, 334.7 The title of this work, which translates to “the man with soles of wind,” was Paul Verlaine’s nickname for Arthur Rimbaud. The two poets entered a tempestu-ous relationship in the early 1870s, including an inci-dent in which Verlaine shot and wounded his young lover.

Artforum International, frieze and Art World, among other publications.