This month, CIRCA brings Agnes Denes’ work to Piccadilly Circus and offers a special editioned print. “My decision to plant a wheat field in Manhattan instead of designing just another public sculpture, grew out of the longstanding concern and need to call attention to our misplaced priorities and deteriorating human values,” Agnes Denes said about her iconic 80s piece.

“Placing it at the foot of the World Trade Center, a block from Wall Street, facing the Statue of Liberty, also had symbolic import…. It represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns.”

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Denes’s best known public artwork Wheatfield —A Confrontation, CIRCA and Piccadilly Lights have commissioned an augmented reality wheat field. Coinciding with Agnes Denes’ 91st birthday on 31 May 2022, a curated selection of AR wheat field photos generated by the public are presented by CIRCA on London’s iconic Piccadilly Lights every evening from 20:22.

“Agnes Denes is a pioneer who alerted the world to humanitarian and environmental issues when very few people were paying attention.” said Josef O’Connor, Artistic Director of CIRCA. “Pushing boundaries once again, we are honored to be marking the 40th anniversary of Wheatfield–A Confrontation with Another Confrontation, combining video with augmented reality to present her timely message on a global stage and introduce her prophetic legacy to a new generation.”

An act of protest, Denes planted an expansive wheat field in a landfill in lower Manhattan in 1982, two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center and facing the Statue of Liberty, as a comment on the mismanagement of world hunger, food, waste, energy, commerce, trade, land use, and economics.