A female artist who has championed for environmental conservation since the late 1960’s.
Now in her late eighties, the Hungarian born artist has been warning humanity about the unsustainable relationship with the environment for over half a century. As one of the first pioneers of environmental art, Denes dedication to minimising environmental destruction is truly inspiring. The sad thing is that worries which she envisioned over 50 years ago, are now a reality. With less natural land than ever before, rising sea levels and unpredictable climates, Denes work is now more important than ever before.
In 2015, Interview Magazine asked Agnes Denes whether her concerns about the environment had changed since the 1960s and ’70s. “No,” she responded. “It’s just that some of the things I talked about 40 years ago have become reality.”
She remains passionate that the purpose of her work is about changing the ecology, and influencing humanity to conserve the natural environment. In a 2015 interview she mentioned the challenge of raising awareness within a society that was reluctant to behave sustainably.
‘’Nobody thought about that [climate change]. Nobody even believed that it was important. And even today you have to really convince people. Even today there are people saying there is no global warming. I mean, people are always fighting reality until it’s pushed down their throats.’’
Perhaps her most iconic piece is ‘Wheatfield- a Confrontation’ created in May 1982. Dene cleared two acres of land in New York’s financial district (two blocks from Wall Street) and planted her crops by hand. The confrontational aspect of her artwork makes sense as she filled land worth billions of dollars with 200 truck loads of soil, a public stand against urbanisation and the devaluation of fertile earth due to capitalism. The contrast of a wheat field against the urban back drop of metropolitan New York affirmed the primordial value of nature over the questionable ethics of modern economics, which savagely demotes the importance of the environment. Her work is visionary in every aspect as somewhat 60 years ago, this brave artist took a public stand against the power holders of the US capital in order to attempt to save the natural environment from further neglect.
Dene has embarked in many other displays to promote her respect for the environment, here are her reasons for ‘Rice/Tree/Burial’ which took place in Sullivan County, New York 1986 .
‘’That’s why Rice/Tree/Burial was born. I planted the rice field, which was planting seed in the ground; chained trees to indicate interference with life, life and death, communication, and thesis/antithesis/synthesis was the basic concept for that. And that’s how it started. So it wasn’t for expansion or using anything large out there, but it had to be created in the environment. My reasons were philosophical and about changing the ecology.’’
Another inspirational piece of art which attempted to shed light upon humans dependance on nature in that it is life giving, chained to our very existence.
Dene resides in New York City and is still championing for environmental conservation and spreading awareness of climate change. There is hope that her voice will be heard and continue to ignite change in helping us as humans to realise how much we need our earth.
