The Living Pyramid

Materials: Wood, soil, plants

Plants: Avena sativa, Anthemis tinctoria, Calendula officinalis, Campanula rapunculus, Carex pendula, Carex sylvatica, Centaurea cyanus, Cichorium intybus, Daucus carota, Deschampia cespitosa, Dipsacus fullonum, Eupatorium cannabinum, Hypericum perforatum, Lazula nivea, Leucanthemum ircutianum, Leucanthemum vulgare, Malva moschata, Malva sylvestris, Melilotus albus, Oenothera biennis, Origanum vulgare, Papaver rhoeas, Reseda lutea, Saponaria officinalis, Secale cereale, Silene dioica, Silene latifolia, Tanacetum vulgare, Trifolium pratense, Trifolium rubens, Triticum aestivum, Verbascum densiflorum, Verbena officinalis

Within the framework of the LUGA exhibition in the city of Luxembourg, Mudam Luxembourg will present the public artwork The Living Pyramid (2015) by the artist Agnes Denes (b. 1931, Budapest) on the esplanade of the Park Dräi Eechelen. The work is conceived as a monumental garden of flowering plants that will occupy the site from May to October 2025.

Agnes Denes usually accompanies her major environmental projects with a ritual of burying a time capsule containing messages for future generations. The making of the time capsule is a collaborative process. Each time, the artist writes a questionnaire composed of existential questions relating to human values, the meaning and quality of life, and the future of humanity. The time capsule is intended to be opened in a thousand years.

As part of the presentation of The Living Pyramid, a time capsule will be buried in the woods surrounding the Park Dräi Eechelen. Everyone is invited to take part in this project by filling out the questionnaire and sending it to [email protected].

Picture credits:

© John McGrail, courtesy Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects

© Mudam Luxembourg

Agnes Denes (born 1931 in Budapest, based in New York) is a leading figure in American conceptual art and a pioneer of environmental/ecological art who attracted international attention in the 1960s and 1970s.

Denes is renowned for her 1982 project, Wheatfield: A Confrontation, where she, along with volunteers, planted a field of red spring wheat over two acres of rubble in Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park. In the 1990s, at the invitation of the Finnish government, she created Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule (1992-96), the world’s first man-made virgin forest, which is legally protected against deforestation for the next 400 years. Currently, Denes is collaborating with the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance in Queens, New York City, to plant a forest of one hundred thousand trees on an industrial landfill site.

Agnes Denes is a New York-based artist of European descent, part of the post-World War II diaspora in the United States, whose work began to attract public attention in the late 1960s. In recent years, as the urgency of climate change and sustainability has become more pressing on a global scale, Denes’ ecological artworks have emerged as profoundly relevant and forward-thinking.

The Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, better known as Mudam Luxembourg, is a renowned museum of contemporary art located in Luxembourg City. Designed by the famous Chinese-American architect and Pritzker Prize winner Ieoh Ming Pei, Mudam houses a vast collection of works of art by local and international artists. Mudam encourages research and dialogue through its various exhibitions, publications and artistic and educational programs. Located in the heart of Kirchberg, in the immediate vicinity of the Dräi Eechelen Museum, the Philharmonie and the various European institutions, Mudam is an emblematic site of Luxembourg City.