"Why would anyone smoke weed when they could just mow a lawn?"
-Hank Hill
-Hank Hill
The lawn was a medieval flex: a lord flaunting his land so copious, it did not even need to grow crops. The green expanse was maintained by peasant labor, just to be admired by the public and leisured upon by the lord’s court. The lawn is one of so many luxuries subsumed into the American Dream and repackaged for the masses. This dispersion has stretched into the privatized space of the lawn’s easy-going sibling: the backyard.
Homes and hedges fence off this space from the nosy public or the HomeOwners Association’s watchful eye to make a personal oasis for the increasingly legendary Middle Class American Family. When they entertain, it becomes a speakeasy for residents and their guests to enjoy booze, food and uniform green grass from wicker chairs. Those lucky enough to have a yard in a city, contend with panoptic windows, trash sheds, and more residents to share it with. That’s why such yards are as often empty as they are enjoyed. These are the grounds on which we encounter The Backyard Show.
In the immersive transformation, artworks expose such subtexts, confronting surveillance, mass-media, consumerism, and climate change. Each piece’s dynamic intervention creates a dialogue with surrounding elements: poured concrete, exposed pipes, rotting plywood. The experience feels uniquely suited to the yard’s astro-turf: lawn grass’s synthetic , sinister doppelgänger. This robot twin demands nearly no maintenance and stays green year round; it smells of rubber, and traps heat, more like a greenhouse than a plant. These sensations linger over our host’s copious plastic-melting bbq fresh off the grill!
Any appreciation of an outdoor feels cut short, hemmed in by the maintenance and conditions circumscribing our grassy patches. How long can we stay out here before distraction or destruction? Both brazenly and with tenderness, the show attempts to distinguish between as long as we can, or as long as we feel like it.
Like the weeds at the yard’s edge or the holes in the fence, these artists re-wild this outdoor space and expand its boundaries into an anarchic cooperative commons.
