Signs in yard

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    Photo: Thomas M. Horton, 1986
Description

Aimed at his community, at Adell (the artist’s “Unfaithful” ex-wife), and at would-be trespassers, Robertson’s confrontational signs dominated his property. (The house and yard were mostly destroyed by a hurricane in 1993.) The often sardonic signs mingled biblical quotations, “the dozens,” badder-than-thou threats, and intimations of the spellcaster’s mysterious otherworldly powers. If they antagonize you, they substantiate their predictions that you must have a problem with Robertson.

Whether one interprets the figure of Adell narrowly or broadly, as either a cuckolding ex-wife or as a personification of Robertson’s general disgust for a world of illusory loyalties (the smile in one sign, “CRAZY LIKE ADELL THEN KEEP ASS OUT,” argues for both interpretations), it is clear she was the object of his real or imaginary revenge. But he didn’t really confess to anything. He was doomed, he knew, to tormenting Versus/Verses, mentally.