Agnes Denes

Agnes Denes (Dénes Ágnes; born 1931 in Budapest) is a Hungarian-born American conceptual artist based in New York City. She is known for works in a wide range of media—from poetry and philosophical writings to extremely detailed drawings, sculptures, and iconic land art works, such as Wheatfield — A Confrontation, a two-acre field of wheat in downtown Manhattan, commissioned by the Public Art Fund, and Tree Mountain—A Living Time Capsule (1992–96) in , Finland. Her work Rice/Tree/Burial with Time Capsule (1968–79) is recognized as one of the earliest examples of ecological art.

Early life and career Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1931, her family survived World War II, the Nazi occupation, and moved to Sweden on their way to the United States. As a teenager, she created her first environmental/philosophical work, Bird Project, in Sweden, comparing migrating bird colonies to people — the migrants of the world. She studied painting at the New School and Columbia University in New York.

She began her artistic career as a poet. Her poetic practice eventually became works of a unique intellectual content and form she later called Visual Philosophy. She has said that the repeated changes in language led her to focus on the visual arts. She soon abandoned painting, due to the constraints of the canvas, and focused broadly on ideas she could explore in other mediums, She has since participated in more than 600 exhibitions at galleries and museums throughout the world, and has written six books. She has one son, Robert T. Frankel and twin grandchildren, Ian and Alessa Frankel.

Selected works

Ecological Rice/Tree/Burial (1968, Eco-Logic, Sullivan County, New York; re-created 1977 at Artpark) As a pioneer of Land Art, Agnes Denes created Rice/Tree/Burial in 1968 in Sullivan County, New York. Acknowledged as the first site-specific performance piece with ecological concerns,

Agnes Denes at Artpark (1977-1979)

During her time at Artpark, Denes recreated her Rice/Tree/Burial piece from 1968. In 1977, she planted a half acre (0.2 ha) of rice 150 feet (45 m) above the spot where Niagara Falls had originally formed. The land itself that she worked on was known to have been an industrial dumping ground, which affected the quality of the rice. In 1978, she continued the project by chaining together trees in the forest in the park to symbolize interference with growth. On August 20, 1979, Denes buried a time capsule at 47° 10′ longitude, 79° 2′ 32″ latitude set to be opened in the twenty-third century. The capsule includes microfilmed responses of university students to questions about the nature of humanity.

Wheatfield — A Confrontation (1982, Battery Park, New York City)

After months of preparations, in May 1982, a two-acre (0.8 ha) field of wheat was planted on a landfill in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center, facing the Statue of Liberty, sponsored by the Public Art Fund. To create the work, 200 truckloads of dirt were brought in and 285 furrows were dug by hand and cleared of rocks and garbage. The seeds were sown by hand and the furrows covered with soil. The field was maintained for four months, cleared of wheat smut, weeded, fertilized, and sprayed against mildew fungus, and an irrigation system was set up. The crop was harvested on August 16 and yielded over 1,000 pounds (455 kg) of healthy, golden wheat.

Tree Mountain — A living time capsule (1996, Ylöjärvi, Finland)

A monumental earthwork reclamation project and the first human-made virgin forest, situated in Ylöjärvi in the Pirkanmaa region of Finland. The site was dedicated by the President of Finland upon its completion in 1996 and is legally protected for the next four hundred years.

A Forest for Australia (Melbourne, Australia, 1998)

6000 trees were planted into five spirals with each spiral containing three species of tree that, when fully grown, would reach different heights. The resulting shape of each spiral resembled a step pyramid. The trees helped alleviate serious land erosion and desertification threatening Australia.

Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie Master Plan (2000)

A 25-year master plan to unite a 100 kilometer-long string of forts dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries comprising the New Dutch Waterline in the Netherlands. Incorporating water and flood management, urban planning, historical preservation, landscaping, and tourism into a single plan.

North Waterfront Park Masterplan (1988-1991, Berkeley, California)

A conceptual master plan was developed for the conversion of a 97-acre municipal landfill, surrounded by water on three sides in the San Francisco Bay, into an oasis for people and nature.

The Living Pyramid (2015, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island, New York)

The first in a series of large earth sculptures, The Living Pyramid was the first land art work by the artist in New York City in over 3 decades. Commission by the Socrates Sculpture Park, it was on view from May through October 2015, and recreated in 2017 for documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany.

The Living Pyramid (2022, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul, Turkey)

A further iteration of The Living Pyramid was installed in the garden of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul from 13 September 2022 to 30 October 2023, with plants from the flora of Istanbul placed on its sides according to their need for shade or sun .

Visual philosophy Beginning in 1968, she began an intensive exploration of philosophy through art. The result was, according to Jill Hartz of Cornell University, "an amazing body of work, distinguished by its intellectual rigor, aesthetic beauty, conceptual analysis, and environmental concern." Paradox and Essence (Philosophical Drawings), 1976, Published by Tau/ma Press, Rome, Italy, in English and Italian. Edition of 200; 60 pages Sculptures of the Mind, 1976, Published by the University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio. Edition of 1,000, 250 signed and numbered; 50 pages Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space: Map Projections (from the Study of Distortions Series, 1973-1979), 1979. Published by Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, New York. Edition of 200 hardback copies in silver foil, signed and numbered by the artist; edition of 600 in paperback; 100 pages, color and black and white throughout, 29 original drawings specially created for the book, 22 transparent pages. Original drawings for Isometric Systems, from the Museum of Modern Art Collection Early Philosophical Drawings, Monoprints, and Sculpture 1970-1973

Sculpture Sculptures of the Mind 1968-2012

Writing See three titles under Visual Philosophy, above. Book of Dust: The Beginning and the End of Time and Thereafter, 1989 Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, New York. Edition of 1,100 of which 200 are signed with an original artwork. Insert ("The Debate - 1 Million B.C. - 1 Million A.D.); 200 pages, 16 full-page duotones The Human Argument, 2008 Spring Publications, Putnam, Connecticut. Poetry Walk—Reflections: Pools of Thought, 2000 Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Art Museum.

Catalogues Agnes Denes: Perspectives, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1974 Agnes Denes: Sculptures of the Mind / Philosophical Drawings by Amerika Haus Berlin, 1978 Agnes Denes 1968 -1980, Gary Garrels curator, Hayden Gallery, MIT, Boston, 1980 Agnes Denes: Concept into Form, Works : 1970-1990, Arts Club of Chicago, 1990 Agnes Denes by Jill Hartz, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 1992 The Visionary Art of Agnes Denes: An Exhibition of 85 Works, Gibson Gallery, 1996 Project for Public Spaces, a Retrospective, Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg PA; 2003 Agnes Denes: Work 1969 - 2013, curated and edited by Florence Derieux, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Firstsite Colchester, Mousse Publishing, 2013-2016 Agnes Denes: Absolutes and Intermediates, edited by Emma Enderby, The Shed, 2019

Public collections Denes has more than ten works in the Museum of Modern Art's collection. In the Metropolitan Museum, the artist has five pieces in the permanent collection. At the Whitney Museum of American Art, Denes has three pieces in the permanent collection. Beyond that, the artist has work in forty-three additional museum permanent collections.

Critical response

1=A gallery exhibition can only suggest how far and wide the polymathic Ms. Denes has ranged over material and mental worlds during the past four decades. It would take a full-scale museum retrospective to do that.|2=Ken Johnson|3=New York Times 2012 National Endowment Fellowships (1974 and 1975) Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (1998) Jill Watson Award for Transdisciplinary Achievement in the Arts from Carnegie Mellon University (1999) Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2007) Ambassador's Award for Cultural Diplomacy (2008) from the American Embassy in Hungary Art Innovation Impact Award, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC.(2020)