Wheat field in Manhattan?
May 25, 2017 at 12:28 AM ,
Aristo Food Inc
Wheat field in Manhattan?
Is this a Photoshop? No.
This photo is completely authentic. It was made in 1982 two crossings from the Wall Street and World Trade Center and facing the Statue of liberty. The warm shades of yellow wheat contrast brightly against the background of gray skyscrapers.
Wheat field is an artistic work of one of the pioneers in landscape art - Agnes Denes. She was born in Budapest in 1931. Her childhood passed in Sweden, and he received her education in the United States of America.
CONCEPT
Wheat is a universal idea. It is a symbol of food, energy, world trade, economy. At that time American agriculture was experiencing one of its biggest grain market crises. In this regard, the artist notes that wheat fields are a reminder of poor governance, world hunger, ecological problems.
PARADOX
But the Work in style Land art impresses not only visually but also conceptually. Sowing cereal fields on land valued at $ 4.5 billion is in fact an extremely large paradox. "Manhattan is one of the richest, overcrowded and attractive islands in the world, so the attempt to raise wheat fields on two acres of land here seems like a loss of dear land and is in contrary to the requirements and mechanisms of system operation" says Agnes.
DILIGENT WORK
Agnes Denes tells that she almost died while she was making the wheat field, so hard she worked. "I worked 16 hours a day, relying on volunteers because I had no money, I had to feed the volunteers in order to requite for their help. So, when ending up with the field, I went home and prepared sandwiches for them for the next morning. We spent seven days a week there. Thank God, no one suffered on the pitch. The work that you love does not hurt you."
So, after several months of preparation, in May 1982 a landfill of two acres, Located in Lower Manhattan was turned into wheat field.
For the creation of the field, 200 trucks were dumped, 285 furrows were plowed on hand and cleaned of stones and junk. The seeds were sown by hand, and the furrows were covered with soil. The wheat is grown for 4 months - treated against pests, fertilized, a special irrigation system has been built. The harvest was collected on August 16th. Over 1000 pounds of wheat were received.
The harvested wheat travels to twenty-eight cities around the world in the form of an exhibition called "International Art Exhibition for the End of World Hunger", organized by the Museum of the
Arts in Minnesota in the period 1987-90. The seeds of the harvested wheat were sown again with
aim to address the "confusion of priorities in the modern civilization".
FEAR FOR THE ENVIRONMENT IN 60's AND 70's OF THE LAST CENTURY TURNED TO BE WELL-FOUNDED
Today the author of the unique WHEAT FIELD shares: "Some of the things I talked about 40 years ago, became a reality. When we organized world conferences where we talked about global warming and climate change, no one paid attention to us. On these Meetings were mostly scientists, I was just one artist among them. But to no one was cared about what was being discussed there. People always understand everything after time. "
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