Wheatfield Flashcards
(54 cards)
Made “Wheatfield-A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown - With Agnes Denes Standing in the Field”
Agnes Denes
Hungarian-born American artist whose practice is based in NYC
Agnes Denes
Studied at the New School & Columbian University, beginning their career as a poet before pursuing visual art full-time
Agnes Denes
One of the first artists in postwar decades to articulate an explicitly ecological direction for art
Agnes Denes
Made “Rice/Tree/Burial”
Agnes Denes
How does Denes describe “Rice/Tree/Burial”
As a manifesto
A creative work that sets out an agenda for radical change
Manifesto
How many components are in “Rice/Tree/Burial”
3
Where was “Rice/Tree/Burial” carried out
Sullivan County, NY
Explain the rice in “Rice/Tree/Burial”
The rice is actual rice that Denes planted, as a gesture and actual means to sustain life
Explain tree in “Rice/Tree/Burial”
The tree is a group of mature trees that’s wrapped in chains which creates a zigzag pattern of metal reaching up toward the sky, as a symbolic expression of human damage and interference with the natural world
What is the zigzag pattern of the trees in “Rice/Tree/Burial” symbolizing
Expression of human damage and interference with the natural world
Explain burial in “Rice/Tree/Burial”
The burial staged was of burying a haiku poem she had written which she didn’t keep a record of since part of her expression was to give up human thought and the conventions of poetic form into the earth
Where was Denes asked to recreate “Rice/Tree/Burial”
Artpark, an outdoor space for site-based artworks in Lewiston, NY
What was different about the rice in Denes recreation of “Rice/Tree/Burial”
Rice was planted on half-acre land, but its growth was affected by mutations from contaminants in the soil
Where did the contaminants from Artpark arose from
To its proximity to Love Canal, an abandoned waterway off of the Niagara River in Niagara Falls
How many tons of toxins were dumped by the Hooker Chemical Company in the mid-20th century
21,000 tons
Dumped 21,000 tons in Love Canal in the mid-20th century
Hooker Chemical Company
What is the Hooker Chemical Company called now
The Occidental Petroleum Company
What was different about the tree in Denes recreation of “Rice/Tree/Burial”
Nothing- the trees were still chained
What was different about the burial in Denes recreation of “Rice/Tree/Burial”
She didn’t bury a poem but instead a time capsule that’s encased in 9 ft of concrete, with a plaque indicating that it shouldn’t be opened until 2979
When should the time capsule in the recreation of “Rice/Tree/Burial” be opened
2979
How thick is the concrete in which the time capsule in “Rice/Tree/Burial” encased in
9 feet
What additional thing was added into the recreation of “Rice/Tree/Burial”
A fourth element - a act of filming the precipice of Niagara Falls for a sustained period of 7 days, while propped out over the falls on a constructed ledge
