The Grass is Greener on the Other Side

2005

Artist’s book, green marker and letterpress (cover), 25.8 x 35.5 cm, 2 books, each 250 pages, edition of 3.

This work is made in collaboration with Kasper Andreasen.

The Grass is Greener on the Other Side is derived from an expression in language referring to envy and neighbourly interaction, a proverb dealing with the notion of the ‘other side’. We use this notion to install rules to follow whilst drawing lines on page after page with a green marker, which denoting ‘grass’. These drawings also mark time passing. Texts and print works are both linked to this ambiguous saying and involve notions of the ‘rhizome’ and anecdotes around being ‘two’.

Part of the Caldic Collection / Collectie-Caldenborgh, Rotterdam

Aee catalogue text:  http://www.tinemelzer.eu/texts/suzanne-zwaarts-the-grass-is-greener/

www.kasperandreasen.com:

‘Over a period of six months, the artists engaged in the performative act of drawing grass with the aim of visualising a linguistic construct. The grass, then, became abstract as well as figurative: it established a border, as it were. The large number of lines that were drawn by hand foregrounds an ongoing tension between sign and signa­ture; the repetitive rhythm of the strokes suggests an endless ‘writing’ of the land­scape. One set of books was acquired by the Caldic Collection, Rotterdam.’