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14
Les Prairies
Thus, this figure constructed and defined in relation to spaces and territories is to be
understood in terms of an attitude towards space. Attitudes and way of life shape an
environment, either in an authoritarian mode or through a more intimate cooperative
interaction. Conquest is embodied by a variety of spatial positions that confront one
another: from the American pioneer to the post-colonial migrant. Botany also provides
a useful model for examining the relationship between the “individual” and the
environment: there are pioneering plants that prepare the earth for vegetables that will
follow later, while others colonize ecosystems and destroy their diversity.
A FLAT EXPANSE
The Prairie: a grassy expanse, where space and an open horizon spread out in all
directions. It is a common, shared, scenic, and poetic space and even a cinematic cliché
in Europe, and America. Natural or artificial prairies are home to a range of species, and
vary with the climate, latitude, or continent, having specific flora and fauna according to
where they are (the African savannah, the Russian steppes, or the Argentinean pampas,
for example). Prairies also belong to the built world.
Thus, the American prairie represents the experience of an uncontained expanse –
unlimited space and boundless horizons. And it is precisely this flat and monotonous
geography that Gertrude Stein transformed into a modern poetic experience. She laid it
bare and detached it from its origins. Flatness also characterizes the generic European
green prairie - geographical and poetic flatness. Monotony produces repetition.
Repetition is an act that is made real when carried out. It produces a poetics that begins
with action rather than with an ideal.
When we explore the horizontal, we discover the verticality of grass: “A flat expanse
seen horizontally from above; yet it is formed by a multitude of upright stems whose
verticality gives it its green quality” (Francis Ponge 1 ) . This takes us from the flat
expanse to the three dimensional expanse: a body occupies an area in space according
to the primary definition of the term. An expanse is not just surface area. A literal
interpretation turns space in on itself, and flatness leads to a simple vitality: “the
awareness that grass is vertical, the constant uprising of green that breathes life back
into us”.
Horizontality also gives rise to an egalitarian principle in relationships. They develop on
the same plane, which they do not in a vertical, hierarchical organization. Flatness is in
fact an attitude: a way of approaching the expanse as a grouping of things, things on an
equal footing, things like death. But it is a beginning that is beginning here.
Les Prairies literally expresses the flattening of spatial practices. A number of artworks
work with the expanse and recognize the importance of concrete spaces, of sites in all
their complexity and their history. "Occupying the ground” seems to be a concern for
artists who have brought their background of using sites to bear on their work (Katinka
Bock, Fernanda Gomes, and Guillaume Leblon are examples). Others decompose our
décor (Gyan Panchal), flatten depths (Dove Allouche, Irene Kopelman, Batia Suter), or
develop botanics of the soil (Loïs Weinberger).
1. Fr a n c i s Po n g e, La fa b r i q u e d u Pr é, in Œu v r e s c o m p l è t e s, Ga l l i m a r d, Bi B l i o t h è q u e d e la Pl é i a d e, 2002.