Deconstruction of the Landscape in Contemporary Art Based on the Example of the Installation Do Plants Dream of the Future? by Igor Eškinja

Abstract

In Igor Eškinja’s installation Do Plants Dream of the Future? the main artistic motif is the living plant world growing in specific locations. The theme is therefore a landscape, but at the same time an anti-landscape because the plants are weeds, and the location is not determined by the natural, but by the industrial environment. The artist scrutinizes the plants in such an artificial environment and the nature here is inseparable from the urban layer. Moreover, the binarity of nature and culture is illustrated throughout the entire artwork, as well as the paradoxical nature of this relationship. This text aims to demonstrate to what extent is Eškinja’s installation is a landscape and what it tells us about the topic of nature in contemporary art.