Sketch Book Entries: from 4 days of Observation
Agnes Denes, Pascal’s Perfect Probability Pyramid & The People Paradox – The Predicament –PPPPPPP, 1980/2016
Research Paper:
Dénes Ágnes
Pascal’s Perfect Probability Pyramid & the People Paradox – The Predicament
Dénes Ágnes is a Magyar artist, who focuses on the way ecology can influence and generate art. She finds her inspiration in both the ecosystems of old and the urban bustle of modernity. She is a graduate of the New School and Columbia University, with a BFA and MFA respectively. Recognized for her plethora of work spanning from philosophical writings to sculpture, her ability to blend different art forms to create impactful work is a unique characteristic of her work. The pieces she creates evoke a discussion, a reflection, and the creation of a belief in the nature of humanity.
The influence of the environment on her work is profound, whether championing it as a cause or using it as a contemplative backdrop, she welds landscape to ideas with inexorable dexterity. The piece known as Wheatfield is one of her most famous and depicts a woman walking through a field of grain with downtown Manhattan in the distance. The image creates forces the viewer to take a philosophical journey and contemplate there modern existence and disconnect from nature. From this piece she went on to forge a master plan for Hollands dike and canal network, these may seem like random leaps from one field to another, but they are connected by the bridge of ecological thinking. The same way grain fields in the Hudson river produce a psychological experience, so can the water that the Dutch live in respect and apprehension of, it is the perspectives that complete the loop of her reasoning.
The piece I studied at University Center is Pascal’s Perfect Probability Pyramid & the People Paradox – The Predicament. In Dénes’ book The Human Argument, she describes the piece as “a society composed of individuals who stand in protected isolation, alone but without privacy. They cannot escape the structure, yet they seem fooled by the illusions of freedom. Representing alienation in togetherness and uniqueness in uniformity, they assume the journey of a living paradox.… The magnificence of their collective accomplishments and the insignificance of the individual component are unmistakable. Not a single figure can walk away from the structure—they are the structure. They are the anatomy and the form and it is their illusions of freedom and the inescapability of the system that form the ultimate paradox.” For me, I quickly realized the general meaning behind the piece, and after reading her description of it I could concur this. However, I tried to dig deeper into the meaning behind the piece. To me, it seems she also depicts class, in the American form, a few at the top and expanding masses beneath. A figure at the bottom must travel further around the pyramid then those near the pinnacle.
Dénes plays with Philosophy, in a way that even on this research paper, you begin to delve deeper into the meaning of the piece. This is a quality not easily achieved by any artist, and yet it seems she dexterously toys with the observer’s brain, bringing you on a pan-continental voyage of meaning and near transcendence. You leap from viewing a minute detail of the piece, a figure in a hurried walk, to suddenly questioning the very reasons for capitalism and time. It is rare to find an artist that so easily manipulates and sheds light on the potential of the mind for contemplation, Dénes Ágnes does this with ease and grace, her work reflects a perspective held by scholar and a lover of nature.
