The caption on this photo really does the artist and this art piece such a disservice! I recognized it from an Art History seminar I took. This is actually Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield – A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill (1982). (So technically Downtown Manhattan). It’s by the accomplished Land Artist Agnes Denes (and it’s her in this picture) - she’s a Jewish woman who survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary as a child (she was born in 1931). Her repeated changing of languages while growing up compelled her to take an interest in the visual arts where she could express herself beyond just words.
This isn’t JUST a wheatfield in the heart of Manhattan. The entire field is part of the art, meant to make an incredibly powerful statement about capitalism, environment, ecology, commerce, food, poverty, etc.
This field of wheat started as a landfill:
The Wheatfield you see above is two acres of landfill that the artist transformed into a field of wheat.
You can see the reclaimed field here! The two buildings behind Agnes are the World Trade Center towers.
Agnes is one of the pioneers of Land Art - and certainly the stand out woman pioneer of Land Art.
Two acres of wheat planted and harvested by the artist on the Battery Park landfill, Manhattan, Summer 1982.
After months of preparations, in May 1982, a 2-acre wheat field was planted on a landfill in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center, facing the Statue of Liberty. Two hundred truckloads of dirt were brought in and 285 furrows were dug by hand and cleared of rocks and garbage. The seeds were sown by hand and the furrows covered with soil. The field was maintained for four months, cleared of wheat smut, weeded, fertilized and sprayed against mildew fungus, and an irrigation system set up. The crop was harvested on August 16 and yielded over 1000 pounds of healthy, golden wheat.
Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox. Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept; it represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, and economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns. It called attention to our misplaced priorities. The harvested grain traveled to twenty-eight cities around the world in an exhibition called “The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger”, organized by the Minnesota Museum of Art (1987-90). The seeds were carried away by people who planted them in many parts of the globe.
The questionnaire was composed of existential questions concerning human values, the quality of life, and the future of humanity. The responses were primarily from university students in various countries where I spoke or had exhibitions of my work. Within the context of the time capsule the questionnaire functioned as an open system of communication, allowing our descendants to evaluate us not so much by the objects we created—as is customary in time capsules—but by the questions we asked and how we responded to them.
The microfilm was desiccated and placed in a steel capsule inside a heavy lead box in nine feet of concrete. A plaque marks the spot: at the edge of the Indian forest, surrounded by blackberry bushes. The time capsule is to be opened in 2979, in the 30th century, a thousand years from the time of the burial.
There are, still within the framework of this project, several time capsules planned on earth and in space, aimed at various time frames in the future.
Postscript: The above text that was written in 1982 has now added poignancy and relevance after 9/11/01
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