Agnes Denes: Absolutes and Intermediates

2019
The Shed, New York City
Cultural (Completed)
18,000 SF
Curator: Emma Enderby
Fabrication: South Side Design and Building
Photography (first image): Dan Bradica
Photography (all others): Michael Vahrenwald/Esto

A retrospective of the polymathic career of Agnes Denes at the newly completed Shed.




The show spans two floors of the new institution, and includes a number of new large scale commissions by the artist, alongside a vast catalogue tracing her prodigious career. Responding to the work which sits between utopian vision and mathematical precision, the upper level galleries are organized over a loose grid of walls, plinths, and projections, leading up to a ‘cave’ designed to host a collection of neon works.

Display elements are manipulated into unexpected configurations. Walls vary from solid to light, vitrines are built into floating partitions, and plinths are stretched into uncomfortable proportions—all connected to the artist’s inimitable perspective. The lower level focuses on a small selection of works, confronting one another through a set of full-height partitions whose  presence varies as one moves between works mounted across the vast gallery space.