Exhibitions
Agnes Denes
Long-term installation
Tinworks Field
Agnes Denes

Agnes Denes Wheatfield—An Inspiration. The seed is in the ground, 2024. Tinworks Art. Courtesy the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects. Photo by Matthew MaCoy.

Overview

As part of its 2024 exhibition, The Lay of The Land, Tinworks presented a significant new work by artist Agnes Denes, Wheatfield - An Inspiration. The seed is in the ground. Denes will continue her activation of Tinworks’ field for our 2025 season with another new ecological artwork, Sunflowers—to follow the wheat. An array of pink sunflowers chosen by Denes will help rejuvenate and restore the land at Tinworks, demonstrating nature’s resilience while bringing a sense of surprise and beauty to the community.

Denes engages science, philosophy, math, linguistics, technology, engineering, urban planning, music, and poetry in visionary artworks that explore environmental issues and humanity’s impact on the planet. One of her most celebrated works, Wheatfield - A Confrontation, was planted in New York City in 1982. It consisted of a two-acre field planted in the landfill created from the construction of the World Trade Center. Her 2024 Wheatfield for Tinworks is the first time Denes accepted an invitation to reposition the work in another American context. Reimagining Wheatfield in Bozeman was particularly compelling to Denes because of the significant role of wheat in the history and economy of Montana, the increasing loss of farmland to urban development in the Gallatin Valley, and the opportunity to devote the field at Tinworks to public art installations.

An important component of the new wheatfield work was an invitation to the community to plant wheat in solidarity in any fallow piece of land, to experiment if a community could come together in a creative act to produce a sustainable crop of wheat. Over a dozen community partners participated, and on September 9, 2024, Denes’ wheatfield was harvested by 200 volunteers. Her wheat circulated through the community as bread baked by Bozeman bakery Wild Crumb and in pounds of milled flour distributed by the Gallatin Valley Food Bank. It will continue to provide sustenance as bread that will be baked in Gabriel Chaile’s oven sculpture throughout Tinworks’ 2025 exhibition season.

As Denes explains, “The Wheatfield is hope. There is renewal in the seed. We are planting hope.”

How You Can Take Part

We invite you to become a part of the art by completing Questionnaire, an artwork first begun in 1979 in which Denes poses questions about the most pressing issues facing humanity, inviting answers and solutions from the community.

Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan

About the Artist

A pioneering figure in conceptual and environmental art, Agnes Denes’ practice confronts urgent questions around land use, sustainability, and humans’ impact on the planet through poetic, monumental works grounded in deep research. Since 1968, she has created site-specific projects that often also act as environmental remediations. Denes is perhaps best known for Wheatfield—A Confrontation (1982). Her Tree Mountain (1992-1996) consists of 11,00 fir trees, planted by 11,000 people in Finland, who received certificates giving them stewardship of the tree they planted for 400 years. The Living Pyramid was originally commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park in 2015. It is a 30 foot x 30 foot x 30 foot structure in which plants are planted that are indigenous to the location in which it is presented. It has been featured in documenta 14 (2017), the Sakip Sabanci Museum, Istanbul (2022), the Hayward Gallery, London (2023) and Desert X, Palm Spring (2025). Denes’ work is in major museum collections around the world. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (2024), Lunds konsthalle, Sweden (2024), The Shed, New York (2019). Born in Budapest in 1931, she lives and works in New York City.

From the Artist

Wheat is wonderful — it sustains humanity and is probably the most planted food next to rice. It’s a good metaphor.

—Artist Agnes Denes, 2024

The original ‘Wheatfield’ was a confrontation of people who run the world. I wanted leaders to rethink the use of land and the use of humanity. This ‘Wheatfield’ is a totally different idea — to bring people together.

—Artist Agnes Denes, 2024

When I first started talking about ecological concepts, they were laughing at me

—Artist Agnes Denes, 2024

I believe that art is the essence of life, as much as anything can be a true essence. It is extracted from existence by a process. Art is a reflection on life and an analysis of its structure. As such, art should be a great moving force shaping the future.

—Artist Agnes Denes, 1976

Take it from me, I am a mountain climber, and there is no way out but up. Not for the peak—I have long since understood about that—but for the mountain. You create the mountain, and then you climb it. Not for the final peak; the challenge is the process and the journey, and the unattainable answers are the lure.

—Artist Agnes Denes, 1980

'Wheatfield' was a symbol, a universal concept. It represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger, and ecological concerns. It was an intrusion into the Citadel, a confrontation of High Civilization. Then again, it was also Shangri-La, a small paradise, one's childhood, a hot summer afternoon in the country, peace, forgotten values, simple pleasure.

—Artist Agnes Denes, 1982