On Andy Hope 1930’s series of works “Robin Dostoyevsky“
“Robin Dostoyevsky” is the title of a series of recent works by German artist Andy Hope 1930.
The size of the paintings and the posture of the male figure depicted recalls the genre of portrait painting from the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Robin Dostoyevsky” is a fantasy figure invented by Andy Hope – a unification of Robin (the counterpart to DC Comic superhero Batman) and the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Andy Hope layers different time spans and genres – in this series a comic book hero with a classic writer. This layering is a characteristic feature of the artist’s work.
The combination of the two names – Robin and Dostoyevsky – provokes a bewildering unbalance: Robin is the helpful young fellow of Batman, often discussed as his secret gay friend – some film versions tried to put an ironic emphasis on this underlying meaning – and Dostoyevsky who is a monumental mythical figure, representing in his works the
dangerous stream of dramatic feelings. His novels feature characters torn between antagonistic desires inside themselves who are lost in a society that has no space for these kind of personalities; his dramatic power is often quoted as an example for the legendary burden of the Russian soul, coming from the cold outsides of civilization and bringing back dark emotions that are suppressed in western culture.
Robin Dostoyevsky – Andy Hope’s figure of fantastic fantasies – evokes young heroes like those that were created in the time after World War II, as J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield or Jim Morrison, as well as characters from a different century, like the dandies of the 19th century. The figure is shown in a moment of transgression, a well known scene in a heroe’s life; he is putting on his coat, an act that provides him with supernatural powers but Andy Hope’s hero turns these powers into a strange unfitting feminine look. – Roberto Ohrt
