Agnes Denes, Absolutes and Intermediates, The Shed

Seeing Agnes Denes’ show at The Shed was an extraordinarily unique experience. It is one that I have thought back to often whenever I am feeling particularly lonely or desperate in this time.  Walking around her spaces made me think: does everyone who sees her art feel like they are inventing something entirely new? Her work feels like something that I understand inherently, if only because I’ve seen it echoed a million times in art that has come after. Careful diagrams and mathematical equations are abound in the art world, yet none feels so extraordinary and so careful as hers. 

Beyond that, her ecological pieces astound. Whenever she brings her work into the world around us - whether it be her wheat field or the planting of trees, or something so simple as a small bowl of bones - I felt a little closer to humanity, more attuned to the human condition.

I’ve never assumed myself to be technically or mathematically minded. Yet there was a place for me, as there is for everyone among the carefully displayed numbers. The moments of feeling alienated were few and far between, and mostly occurred when I did not understand how a piece fit into her collection. This happened most intensely in two places - her divergence into neon and hologram, and the actualization of her drawings in the downstairs space. Both felt unnecessary and, by extension, unnerving.

However, the show as a whole was distinctly fluid. Each piece fit perfectly together, and even the parts that I named as not fitting in were, in retrospect, simply a part of Denes’ journey. That is what struck me so fully: the sense of everything having its place in her collection. I fully believe that she is one of the greatest artists of our modern age.