The Year of the Motorcycle, an interactive mixed media portrait installation by artist T.R. Ericsson, profoundly details the final stages of Michael Robinson’s struggle with a terminal illness. Michael Robinson, the artist’s uncle and last remaining maternal family member, died on August 14, 2004.
Robinson was a motorcycle enthusiast whose prized possession was a recently discovered vintage 1950 Matchless motorcycle. As Robinson’s life approached its end, the daily restoration, maintenance, and cleaning of this Matchless motorcycle became his singular motivating desire, restoring life to something even as his body was deteriorating. In The Year of the Motorcycle, Ericsson challenges his belief in the undying value of the “emotional individual” through his account of the quiet, yet unyielding, expiration of an interminable personality. The conversations surrounding, in part, the daily care of the Matchless, between uncle and artist, inspire this installation.

The Year of the Motorcycle portrait installation is displayed in the Progressive Art Collection’s exhibition space, which is 75 feet long by 23 feet wide. The main exhibition wall is painted metallic silver and is adorned by theatrical black curtains, staging, and lighting. The Matchless motorcycle and an interactive video anchor the exhibition, while personal artifacts, transcribed conversations, and photographs form a supplemental curatorial archive. The Matchless motorcycle bears witness to the life represented in the exhibition; its singularity evoking the identity of the individual himself, Michael Robinson. The artifacts and video become together a psychological tableaux of Robinson’s final attempt to reconcile his life and imminent death.

Specifically, the interactive video, projected on the center of the exhibition wall, is a 50 minute cyclical video featuring the roadway between the artist’s home and his uncle’s home as it was traversed by the artist during the last months of Robinson’s life. Emerging from the moving road and its continuously morphing landscape are photographic memories that move toward the front of picture plane in psychological waves. The memory sequences are activated by the viewer. The longer the viewer remains in front of the moving road, the greater and more substantial Robinson’s mental images become. To know the artwork intimately, to see Robison intimately, is to offer oneself before the video in earnest intimacy.

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How can one represent another well, describe another accurately, if at all?

The Year of the Motorcycle was a portrait installation, a solo show, and a tribute to a Progressive product. It was visually stunning and intelligently displayed. Mostly, it was emotionally arresting like an intense violin concerto passage, a plaintive guitar melody from a dramatic film score, or the softest, beckoning whisper. And it was filled with this emotion before the installation was even finished.

For me, The Year of the Motorcycle became an opportunity to witness intimately the passion of a determined and uncompromising artist. For weeks, I watched Tom Ericsson wrestle The Year of the Motorcycle into existence, forming into one spectacular whole hundreds of components, complex and nuanced. At the center of this cacophony of biographical artifacts, motorcycle ephemera, an innovative interactive video, and a beautifully maintained vintage motorcycle emerged the identity of a man Tom loved, Michael Robinson. There was a presence.

“If you could just see one individual, you could see the world…if you just pay attention.” He said this many times during the installation until it became, for us, a way in, the first step. There was a presence.

Tom Ericsson mines the life he knows, his own, for meaning. He won’t look further. There is already more than a lifetime’s amount to say about eveything  in just retelling the stories of those individuals he has loved. It’s in the way he tells it, with an unforgettable authenticity.

Soren Kierkegaard states in The Present Age, that our society is passionless, one that “leaves everything standing but cunningly empties it of significance.” We put everything we can hold onto in its right place. Tom Ericsson puts everything in its wrong place, even in the headquarters of an insurance company, and there quietly and indirectly, it begins. That first step in. A moment of passion.

I never met Michael Robinson. But I’ve been shown him, and somehow I’ve been shown myself.

-H. Scott Westover

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--When your not feeling well your not in the best of spirits.
-Well no.
--The patio looks nice.
-Yeah don’t remind me.
--Are you going to put the carpeting in?
-Well my wife is working on it.
--It looks like it’s gonna rain some more.
-How much more of this is it going to take.
--You mean me?
-No the rain.
--Do you believe in God Michael?
-Well I don’t know… I mean… well… well if you were to ask me yes or no, I would say no. I havn’t seen any proof… I guess you’d have to show me… you’d have to show me … I’m from Missouri. If something would happen, some miraculous thing… if my grandson didn’t die. Those kinds of things.
--You had a grandson that died?
-Yeah. My wife says I should go…shes after me. I mean I go.
--To your wifes church?
-Yeah where else would I go? It’s bad enough going, I’m not gonna go to a strange church.
--Well I’m going to leave a book with you.
-OK
--You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. It just has things on each page that might help you through the day…
-It’s big print anyway.
--well it might help you …
-You never know. Well anyway thanks for coming out.
--I just want you to know that god loves you. he thinks your wonderful. God can’t do bad things to people. Sometimes people blame God.
-Well I’m not saying that.
--I know I’m just talking it out.
-I’m not blaming anybody. Maybe myself that’s all I should have taken better care of myself.
--I’m gonna pray for you.
-Join the group.
--Hows your wife doing?
-I think shes doing alright, sometimes she gets upset but I tell her you gotta face it. I mean I’ve known since the end of April. You’ve gotta accept it. What else can you do. You have to accept it or throw yourself off a bridge. (laughs) I’m not happy about it. I’m not gonna start baking a cake.
--Because your not feeling well?
-No I wouldn’t bake a cake if I was feeling good. You see what I’m saying.
--What do you want most now?
-Getting some energy back.
--Well maybe the blood transfusion will help you feel better.
-Yeah it would be nice I’m starting to lose hope.
--Maybe it will make you feel better for a week.
-A week.
--Maybe even a day would be worth it.
-Ah a day?
--A day wouldn’t be worth it?

-Well, not in this condition. I mean I don’t think I ever had a blood transfusion. Maybe at the hospital all the poking they did there I don’t know but it doesn’t sound to bad and if I could get some energy back.
--So you aren’t ready to give up yet? Do you want to say a prayer?
-…. No… If I’m gonna do something I’m gonna mean it you know.
--OK that’s alright I understand.
-Well alright I appreciate you coming out.
--I’ll drop by in a few weeks and see how your doing.
-Well we’ll see.
--Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
---Oh nice to meet you to.
-Alright thanks for coming out.