Creeping buttercup plus#
Creeping buttercup series#

Louisa Buck, ‘Champion of the urban weed’, The Art Newspaper, December 2002. Delicate, pale leaves cluster above the elaborate root ball and at the joints of the branches, while fibrous roots extend from a mass at the base of the leaves.įurther reading: Heidi Reitmayer, ‘Hello Weed’, Tate: International Arts and Culture, no.3, January/February 2003, pp.60-8. These slowly dying blooms indicate the passage of time during the making of the etching. Several small flowers emerge from the end of the stems, in various states of decay. One of the most elaborate weeds in the portfolio, it extends in a wide composition with stems arching off to the left and right of the page. This print depicts a creeping buttercup or Ranunculus repens. The portfolio’s title alludes to the practical benefit of its profitability: proceeds from the sale of these etchings helped Landy and his backers recoup some of the costs of staging Break Down. The simple beauty of the etchings which dignify the most commonplace of plants also made these works appealing to collectors. (For further information on nature prints, see Deepening with Clouding Over, 1984-6 (Tate T05212-3 and P77235-9) by Günter Brus (born 1938) and Arnulf Rainer (born 1929).) Landy includes the imperfections of each specimen. The detail of the works recalls botanical illustration, particularly the direct imprints of plants known as nature prints made in the nineteenth century before the advent of photography.

As Julian Stallabrass has pointed out, ‘the depicted weeds act metaphorically, standing in for the urban underclass – similarly mobile, mongrel and diasporic – and also the subject of prolonged neglect and spasmodic measures of control, or weeding’ (Stallabrass). Shares with Landy’s earlier work an attentive focus and a concern with showing the marginalised and overlooked. He returned to this theme in late 2001 and the etchings in the Nourishment portfolio were made between March and October 2002.Ĭritics have interpreted the etchings as a quiet, low-key repost to Break Down, the calm after the storm. Landy actually began making images of weeds in the late 1990s but these early drawings were destroyed during Break Down. Break Down was a massive project that took over three years to realise and after its completion Landy did not begin a new body of work immediately. In 2001 Landy staged Break Down, a major project in which he and a team of operatives systematically catalogued, then dismantled and destroyed all of the artist’s 7,227 possessions. Scrapheap Services, 1995 (Tate T07221) is a fictional service company that disposes of the undesirable elements of society, represented by tiny cut-out figures of people made from rubbish. Landy is best known for large-scale installations that critique the mechanisms of capitalism and consumerism. Landy collected a number of these plants and took them back to his studio where he potted and tended them, making studies of their structures including detailed renderings of roots, leaves and flowers. They grow between paving stones or on waste ground in the city, tenaciously asserting themselves despite being overlooked by the majority of passers-by. Weeds are hardy, thriving in often inhospitable conditions with very little soil, water or direct sunlight. They occupy an urban landscape which is very hostile and they have to be adaptable and find little bits of soil to prosper’ (quoted in Buck). He has said, ‘they are marvellous, optimistic things that you find in inner London.

Landy has described why he was drawn to these ‘street flowers’. The etchings are all meticulous, life-sized studies of individual weeds the artist found growing in the street. These prints were first exhibited at Maureen Paley Interim Art, London between December 2002 and January 2003 alongside several related etchings produced in an edition of six which were sold individually.

Creeping buttercup plus#

The portfolio was published by Paragon Press in an edition of thirty-seven plus six artist’s proofs the set owned by Tate is number nine in the series.

Creeping buttercup series#

Is one of a series of etchings in Landy’s portfolio Nourishment.