Rodney Graham’s large-scale light box Allegory of Folly: Study for Equestrian Monument in the Form of a Wind Vane (2005) depicts the artist in antiquated clothing, sitting on a mechanical horse. His posture and attire reference Hans Holbein’s portrait of the Dutch scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam (1523), while the title alludes to Erasmus’s famous work In Praise of Folly (1511). Graham visualizes a satirical inversion of the values characteristic of Erasmus’s work by positioning himself backward on the horse and studying the telephone book of his hometown, Vancouver. Considering these motifs together, not only is the complexity of the historical, geographical, and intellectual references intensified, but the connections are also brought into a playful motion by the humor of the scene, in which forward movement and retrospection converge.
A similar motif, in which the artist assumes the pose of Erasmus of Rotterdam on horseback, is also explored by Graham in his silkscreen print Weathervane (2009).
