Weeds

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BACKGROUND Current international developments in garden theory (Bauman, Jay) have identified labour in the garden as an unseen violence to create and maintain a picturesque ideal. The photograph Weeds in the publication Is the Future boring questions how the onerous task of garden weeding can be made manifest in an art work to create a dialect between boredom and violence in the creative processes of the artist and the gardener. There are parallels in this research with a growing number of contemporary artist including Fischli and Weiss (Munster 1997) and Song Dong (Documenta 13) who have created gardens that leave apparent the physical, temporal and subjective elements of their production. CONTRIBUTION The curatorial framework of boredom locates the contextual basis of the work within the discourse of boredom and violence as a necessity in visualising art as expounded by Deleuze. In this context the work makes a new and original contribution to this discourse through linking boredom and violence in the creative processes of the artist and the gardener. The overloaded trolley of weeds implies onerous labour and violence in the everyday context to reflect on lived time, violence and the creative process of art making albeit in a deadpan and ironic manner. The work is aligned with the internationally recognised works of Wojtek Doroszuk (PL), Dorota Kenderová/Jaro Varga (SK), Matthew MacKisack (UK), Jan Nálevka (CZ), , Eugenio Percossi (IT), Dennis McNulty (IE) Amanda In (FR), Mathias Neumann ( US DE) SIGNIFICANCE The publication curators / editors Dorota Kenderová and Jaro Varga (SK) are highly esteemed, internationally recognized curators at HIT Gallery Bratislava. www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/arts/25iht-rarthit25.html The publication comprises textual and visual material from 42 artists from 22 countries The publication was funded through a competitive peer reviewed process by Intenda Foundation and the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic