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

Authors

  • Katarina Rukavina Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i29.564

Keywords:

identity; installation; Do Plants Dream of the Future?; weed; landscape; space; wallpapers; 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.

Author Biography

Katarina Rukavina, Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka

Katarina Rukavina is an associate professor at the Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka where she teaches history of art and art theory. She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb and completed her postgraduate studies in philosophy, majoring in aesthetics, at the same faculty in 2008.  Katarina works in an interdisciplinary field of aesthetics, philosophy of art, art theory and art history. She explores issues related to the discourse of visuality such as oculocentrism, antioculocentrism or the extended concept of art in the 20th century and today. Her most recent work deals with the relationship between aesthetics and politics. She publishes papers in the journals Filozofska istraživanja, Metodički ogledi, Ars Adriatica, and Ars&Humanitas. In co-authorship with the artist Nadija Mustapić, she published the book Interaktivna umjetnost u javnoj sferi: diskursi i tehnike [Responsive art in the public sphere: discourses and techniques]. She lives in Rijeka.

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Published

30.04.2023

How to Cite

Rukavina, K. (2023). Deconstruction of the Landscape in Contemporary Art Based on the Example of the Installation Do Plants Dream of the Future? by Igor Eškinja . AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, (30), 257–274. https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i29.564