Agnes denes

I never considered myself a performance artist.

The tree is made by nature, mathematics by people. And combining the two is creating this beautiful alliance between humanity and nature. That's why my forests are mathematical expansion systems, all of them.

I had drawings that were the first time that mathematics was put into visual form.

People don't hurt what they love.

Philosophy gets its ugly head into everything, but I don't think we live philosophy anymore. It's done.

There's no precedent for women philosophers and there's no precedence for most of the things I did.

Pattern-finding is the purpose of the mind and the construct of the universe. There are an infinite number of patterns, some of which are known; those still unknown hold the key to unresolved enigmas and paradoxes.

One thing that's paramount in my life is that I am alone. I'm a loner. And yet I have many friends and I don't feel lonely. And I even like my own company. But when I'm alone, it's to read or write. I'm in my thoughts. Mostly I'm learning.

People always understand everything in retrospect.

I always was alone. And I'm alone today. It's fine. I have lots of friends, but not in terms of working together.

People are always fighting reality until it's pushed down their throats.

If I like a person, I like them. I may like the art and not like the person.

Public art existed all along, but ecological art just naturally grew out of my thinking and writings in that area for years. I didn't get involved in it; I started what then became a movement.

We use up words as we use up images. We use up everything, and that's good, because it makes us grow.

Most wonderful things are unconscious.

My work is about helping humanity.

Thinking has an understructure and underpinnings.

I'm mostly self-taught. I didn't learn much in school.

Society likes to file you away, put you in this or that category. And I never fit any category. Maybe that's why I was left out of a lot of things, or why my work was not really understood, because there was no precedent for it.

Anything important has to be almost invisible. And underrated. So the understructure should be underrated, but strong enough to hold the earth.

I went through about six or seven painting methods just to see what I didn't want to do. And then I got off the wall, and went into the environment.

Words are changing. I find that old expressions are outdated, so when I write something, I try to find a new expression that hasn't been born yet. It's difficult.

What I did for my last act as a painter, if you call me a painter, was to photograph the weave of the canvas, and enlarge it and enlarge it until it became like a landscape.

I wish I didn't have daily problems to deal with, so that I could just concentrate on learning more, every single day.

Every one of my works, when I'm looking back, becomes some kind of solution, or something to concentrate on. Something to pay attention to and maybe change direction.

I hate to put tags on things, because tags change, and they change with the requirements made on them.

If I could relive my life, what I would do is work with scientists. But not one scientist, because they're locked into their little specializations. I'd go from scientist to scientist to scientist, like a bee goes from flower to flower.

People have too many problems during the day; they don't want to think.

When I'm gone, you'll be sitting in a cafe and say, "Do you remember Agnes?"

I study what I work with. I studied all these different fields of science that I needed for my work. I studied how to mine a landfill and what to plant in it. It's fascinating because you learn a new field each time.

Author details

Agnes Denes: Biography and Life Work

Agnes Denes was a notable Hungarian-born American conceptual artist based in New York City. The story of Agnes Denes began on May 31, 1931 in Budapest, Hungary.

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 (1982), 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 Ylöjärvi , Finland. Her work Rice/Tree/Burial with Time Capsule (1968–79) is recognized as one of the earliest examples of ecological art .

Legacy and Personal Influence

Academic foundations were established at New School, Columbia University.

Philosophical Views and Reflections

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.

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.

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Empery Quotes
Inspire · Reflect · Repeat