The Guardian has today (Monday 18 July) launched The Great Women’s Art Bulletin – a new fortnightly column from art historian and broadcaster, Katy Hessel. In each instalment, Katy will write about an artwork made by a woman that speaks to the current news agenda.
The first column looks at Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield: A Confrontation and what it says about our heating planet. Forty years ago, Denes grew two acres of wheat on a landfill site by Wall Street in Manhattan, transforming the wasteland into a golden wheatfield. As Katy reevaluates in her column, this spectacular artwork spoke volumes about the way land has been misappropriated for profit rather than to the benefit of the world’s ecology, contributing to dangerously rising temperatures such as those we are experiencing in cities across the UK this week.
