Object Details
Artist
Agnes Denes
Date
1977 (negatives); 2012 (prints)
Medium
Boxed set of 39 archival gelatin silver prints on Ilford Galerie fiber-based paper, with diagram and artist’s text on fiber based paper Edition 3/3 + 2 AP
Dimensions
Each sheet: 10 × 8 inches (25.4 × 20.3 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired through the Class of 1970 Contemporary Art Fund
Object
Number
2015.012 a-qq
In her performance Rice / Tree / Burial, conceptual artist Agnes Denes planted a 150-acre field of r(…)
In her performance Rice / Tree / Burial, conceptual artist Agnes Denes planted a 150-acre field of rice, chained trees in an abandoned Indigenous American burial ground, and buried haiku poems in Lewiston, New York, near Niagara Falls. These symbolic gestures expressed concerns about human interference with the natural landscape such as pollution and manipulation of terrain, surrounding one of the country’s most emblematic sites. These actions are reflective of ecological concerns that became more widespread in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Living at the edge of the falls for seven days and performing these tasks, Denes confronted uncertainty and risk by placing her life at the will of ground made unstable by human intervention. -Sami Siegler (“Shifting Ground,” curated by undergraduate members of Cornell’s History of Art Majors’ Society, with oversight by Leah Sweet and Brittany R. R. Rubin, and presented at the Johnson Museum April 21-August 12, 2018)
