This style of “field” installation was around for a long time before the poppies which were a beautiful and poignant but not necessarily hugely original.
Indeed – the poppies were the right thing in the right place at the right time. But nothing new in any respect and while I’d not want to take anything away from that project – it did succeed entirely on its own merits-probably most artists faced with the same opportunity / place / audience would have ended up devising pretty much the same work.
What can become problematic in art practice is theres a broad language of materials and forms that are in every artists vocabulary. Every now and then a certain artist gets popular acclaim for a certain work and a bit of that vocabulary ‘sticks’ to them and its kind of lost to everyone else because using (as in this instance) a field work, or red, or a reference of to a current centenary of war*, becomes a reference to that work and it becomes part of that artist’s brand. It means any superficial similarities appear derivative and in this instance people are seeing the superficial similarities more than they are seeing the distinct differences.
*which every commissioning body is asking for at the moment. Done one, short listed for another.
