Agnes Denes, a Hungarian-American artist, recently presented a new tiered structure shaped in a pyramid form for Desert X’s fifth round held in California. Known as The Living Pyramid, It is one of the largest scale works to be featured in the state’s biennial art festival. It is also the first sculpture to debut during Desert X 2025.
This piece is located on the property of the historic Sunnylands Center & Gardens and is an iteration of her previous sculpture The Living Pyramid which was first premiered in 2015 at the Socrates Sculpture Park in NYC. The version made for California contains cacti and domestic desert plantings while the original was surrounded by grasses.
“It carries new symbology, as it blossoms into flowers the pyramid rejuvenates itself symbolizing the advancement of our kind,” Denes remarked.
In 6 months, the pieces of artwork will automatically change as the desert plants germinate and bloom, replicating the cycle of life surrounding nature. This active process of nature adapting to meet the pyramid and demonstrates Denes’ allowance of societal constructs within her art is what sculptor Denes refers to as evidence of nature’s spontaneous growth.
As Denes put it, “the pyramids in my work are not a replica of the ancient Egyptian pyramids. Instead, they are social pyramids that highlight the foreboding eco-social issues and offer solutions to the world’s biggest problems.”
The Living Pyramid by Agnes Denes, a pioneer of environmental art, will debut at Desert X 2025. biennial focused on nonlinear storytelling through large installations. Denes, who was born in Budapest and presently resides in New York, is known for her environmental art. She is infamous for her piece, Wheatfield – A Confrontation, where she planted a 2.2 acre wheat field next to the World Trade Center. Denes ‘puddle sculptures’ were used for the 2020 Desert X in Saudi Arabia, which featured trampoline-like containers disguised as faked puddles.
