Agnes Denes retrospective
The artist, standing within "Wheatfield--A Confrontation," at the Battery Park Landfill, 1982.
Philosophy in the Land II, an exhibition featuring photography, drawings and prints by artist Agnes Denes spanning the last 50 years, is on view at the Leslie Tonkonow Gallery in Manhattan until January 16th. Denes is a pioneer of the environmental art movment whose ecological and philosophical interests surfaced in her 1968 piece Rice/Tree/Burial, which has been described as “the first site-specific piece anywhere with ecological concerns.” Also included in the exhibition are photos of her iconic Wheatfield–A Confrontation, a field of wheat planted and harvested by the artist in 1982 on the site of the Battery Park Landfill, now Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. Commissioned by Public Art Fund, Denes created Wheatfield over a period of four months and described the piece as “a work that addresses human values and misplaced priorities.” The exhibition also includes many of the artist’s drawings and prints exploring visual ideas across a range of disciplines, including mathematics, philosophy and science.
