Agnes Denes’s Wheatfield: Getting Back to the Right Nature
By Olivia Smith
A monument can really be anything; it does not have to fit in with the traditional concept of what a monument should be. I chose to study Agnes Denes’s piece, “Wheatfield”, because it was completely made from natural materials yet was still able to portray a lot of strong messages about gender, and the divide between the natural world and the industrialized world. I think this concept is something that we as a society really need to start paying more attention to and talking about because we so often tend to go about our daily lives and not think about the harm we are causing the planet and our society as a whole. Agnes Denes was an artist who emerged in the 1960’s. She is known for being involved in many art movements, and working with multiple different mediums. However, most of her work portrayed socio-political ideas. The topic she was most famously known for and the one she was most passionate about was environmental awareness and how we should really be looking at nature vs. culture. Her piece “Wheatfield” is possibly her most well known work of art. It took four months to create in 1982, and was about two acres of wheat planted in lower manhattan, two blocks from the world trade center. The contrast between them is very notable. On one side you have these big, strong, vertical, erect buildings. And on the other is this horizontal, all natural field. Nature has always been described as having the characteristics of a woman. It has been called things like “beautiful,” and “virgin lands.” As well as being there for men to come and conquer, or penetrate. The tall buildings are a symbol for man, and also have a lot of the same characteristics when it comes to describing them. In this piece Agnes Denes said she wanted to call attention to problems such as hunger and the mismanagement of resources. She also wanted people to see this and rethink their priorities, to show them that we do not need to keep taking over land to build more unnecessary things. I think this piece is really powerful in that aspect, but also has underlying symbols of sex and gender. I wanted to study this piece as a monument because I think it is something that people need to see and understand, and that art is the best way to portray these concepts.
Denes is very spiritual when it comes to her art, but only when it comes to her art. She believes that the planet, the nature, goes hand in hand with spirituality, and that can be enhanced with art for people to experience. In an interview she says, “What you see when you google my