In 1982 Agnes Denes cultivated, grew, and harvested a two-acre wheatfield in downtown Manhattan, a few blocks away from the World Trade Center and the heart of the financial district. [album inside]
The public-art project was titled Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Lower Manhattan. And while much of its "confrontation" might now be understood as set against the "greed-is-good" financial excesses of the 1980s, its core philosophical and ecological messages arguably hold just as much challenge and resonance to this day.
In Denes's own words (from an essay published in 1990*):
Manhattan is the richest, most professional, most congested, and, without a doubt, the most fascinating island in the world. To attempt to plant, sustain, and harvest two acres of wheat here, wasting valuable and precious real estate, obstructing the machinery by going against the system, was an effrontery that made it the powerful paradox I had sought for the calling to account.
...Introduce a leisurely wheatfield into an island of achievement - craze, culture, and decadence. Confront a highly efficient, rich complex where time is money and money rules. Pit the congestion of the city of competence, sophistication, and crime against the open fields and unspoiled farmlands. The peaceful and content against the achiever. The everlasting against the forever changing. ...The stone city against soft rural land. Simplicity versus shrewd knowing. What we already know against all that we have yet to learn.
And her piece concludes:
After my harvest the two-acre area facing New York Harbor was returned to construction to make room for a billion-dollar luxury complex. Manhattan closed itself once again to become a fortress, corrupt yet vulnerable. But I think this magnificent metropolis will remember a majestic, amber field. Vulnerability and staying power, the power of a paradox.
That land was not actually there before the 60's. During the excavation for the WTC the had too moved the dirt so they decided to fill about 38 hectares of the hudson river adding an estimated 90 million in property value to nyc.
![image showing In 1982 Agnes Denes cultivated, grew, and harvested a two-acre wheatfield in downtown Manhattan, a few blocks away from the World Trade Center and the heart of the financial district. [album inside]](8438c703-2218-5a5f-940b-9e6a8eeb0602.jpg)
jolioshmolio on September 11st, 2017 at 18:19 UTC »
Photo album: http://imgur.com/a/Vh1QN
The public-art project was titled Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Lower Manhattan. And while much of its "confrontation" might now be understood as set against the "greed-is-good" financial excesses of the 1980s, its core philosophical and ecological messages arguably hold just as much challenge and resonance to this day.
In Denes's own words (from an essay published in 1990*):
And her piece concludes:
* Denes, Agnes. "The Dream," Critical Inquiry 16 [Summer 1990]. Web: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343775
dalovindj on September 11st, 2017 at 19:28 UTC »
What did they do with the harvested wheat I wonder?
BooBacon on September 12nd, 2017 at 01:33 UTC »
That land was not actually there before the 60's. During the excavation for the WTC the had too moved the dirt so they decided to fill about 38 hectares of the hudson river adding an estimated 90 million in property value to nyc.