The Art World: What If...?! with Agnes Denes

The artist Agnes Denes saw it coming. Machines taking over. Technology converging with consciousness. History on a pendulum swinging perilously back and forth.

In this intimate conversation recorded with host Charlotte Burns in Denes' downtown Manhattan loft apartment and studio space, they talk about her work. When Denes wrote about these things more than 50 years ago, it was prescient, unsettling, and brilliant.

Now the artist is in her mid-90s and is still writing and making art every day. And she’s still asking the questions that matter: What is humanity's purpose? What is love? How do we survive?

Denes planted wheat in downtown Manhattan on landfill that would become Battery Park City. She made ecological art before climate change was front page news. Her work spans conceptual art, poetry, drawings, installations, sculptures, writings and more. Twenty thousand pieces, mostly never seen.

Today? She hands out wheat seeds like promises. Plant hope. Harvest peace. Become part of the art.

The questions never change, she says. Only their importance shifts.

What if we listened?

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