Agnes Denes, American
Wheatfield – A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan – Blue Sky with World Trade Center, 1982
In 1982 Agnes Denes took it upon herself to change the landscape of lower Manhattan. She decided to change the ordinary sculpture work she did to be a moving and interactive installation for the concrete jungle that was lower Manhattan. Denes planted a wheat-field over a landfill that previously added to the degradation from Manhattan. She wanted to show the shocking juxtaposition between the skyscrapers and the simple wheat-field. The wheat-field is something that can sustain human life, and Manhattan is the center of the modern world. The twin towers in the background also play into the idea of how as much as our world progresses, there is always tragedy that exists amongst the progress. Denes took it upon herself to include the peoples who live and work in lower Manhattan to participate in this eco-art. It poses the question that in today’s world what seems like it would be more human – Skyscrapers or a wheat-field? Label by Annabel Bentley