The pressed flower tumbleweeds you've encountered serve as a critique of the art institution’s inability to accomplish their main goal: to bring art and its ideas to the public. The flowers are pressed in a tumbleweed shape to mimic the experience of encountering a real tumbleweed out west; it is there one moment and gone the next, similar to the casual stroll through a contemporary museum. A painting or a sculpture are there one moment and the viewer gone the next. The pressed flower tumbleweeds are placed in neighborhoods to literally bring art to the people. However, the odds of someone encountering and having a meaningful experience with them are small. 

Those who choose to engage with the work can scan the QR code that brings them to this horrifically artsy website. This website is modeled almost exactly from the website of an artist that lectured at my college a few years ago. If the viewer has the patience to navigate through the entirety of this website, they will eventually understand the work as a critique, however, they had to jump through quite a few hurdles to get here. The experience is purposefully frustrating and confusing, therefore exemplifying the confusion of the average gallery viewer. 

If you've made it this far after finding a tumbleweed on the street, congratulations, you are one of the world's greatest art viewers. 

Where this thesis has hope is in the tumbleweed’s main purpose: to pollinate. Tumbleweeds out west have died, shriveled up, and broken off of their stem. Then, they begin their true purpose: to pollinate by rolling through the plains. Institutional art in the gallery as it exists is dead, its life purpose to bring art to the community has failed. However, it still has the potential to carry out its goal: to pollinate and reach the eyes, ears, and hearts of the viewer.