Bart Drost

Grass grows grass - an installation at ALARM

From April 13 to September 23, 2018, Drost installed a composition of 20 sandblasted glass plates in the garden of Artist Initiative Alarm in Beugen (NB). The plates seemed to float just above the grass. They have been left exposed to wind and weather. No matter how much the grass grew. For five months. Grass grows glass.

How does that work if you let things take their course? And can we actually do that? Can something grow if it is suppressed? Will it result in a battle for the rights of the strongest or will the concepts of art and nature merge?

On September 23, 2018, this project concluded with the action 'the boys are taking a bath', during which Drost washed the glass plates in a tub, Ad van Rosmalen read a poem, Pim Steinmann told a story, Lars Reen played songs and Anneke Smit provided an insight into 'bath scenes in art history'. The 'side project' drawing lines, boys, drawing lines, was also presented.

The boys take a bath

The finissage of the grass grows glass project was entitled 'the boys take a bath'. After all, when everything has to be taken home clean again. In a tub, the glass plates underwent a thorough washing one by one. It became what the art world calls 'a performance'.

linesdrawingboysdrawinglines

For this project, the lines of the sandblasted drawings were sawn from pine wood. This means that every glass plate drawing now also has a spatial version. A version that consists of separate parts. These separate parts can be put together exactly as the sandblast drawing, but new compositions can also be created.