Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci Museum hosts a site-specific exhibition titled Living Pyramid by Agnes Denes, one of the pioneers of ecological art from the 1960s to the present. The Manifesto , written by Agnes Denes in 1969, is also on display.
The Living Pyramid, a site-specific work first built in 2015 at the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York and then in the Nordstadtpark in Kassel as part of documenta 14 in 2017, can also be considered as a sculpture with a natural life cycle. The Manifesto, written on marble, produced specifically for this exhibition in line with the artist's wishes, has now taken its place in the permanent collection as a permanent part of the garden.
The pyramid, consisting of wooden stepped terraces filled with four tons of soil, draws a nine-meter arc reaching into the sky. On the terraces of the pyramid, there are two thousand plants and flowers of approximately six hundred species, selected together with the artist from the urban flora of Istanbul, determined according to the amount of sun and shadow falling on each side. The pyramid will change and transform as long as it is displayed in the garden; Plants will sprout and bloom, some will go to seed, some will die. Aiming to reveal the organic development that nature undergoes when interacting with the pyramid, one of the most iconic forms of human civilization, Denes said, "Pyramids are based on mathematics and thus achieve a kind of perfection, but they also contain all the imperfections they represent and visualize." It gives clues as to why he wants to express human-nature interaction with a living pyramid. Denes, who has been using the pyramid form as a metaphor in different media from drawing to sculpture for nearly half a century, also questions the social hierarchies in our intellectual understanding through this form.
Agnes Denes' Living Pyramid will achieve its true purpose by being supported by learning programs that promote environmental awareness, conservation and sustainability. In this sense, it is not just about the plants, but also the project of the community that comes together to plant them; a type of public art work. It can also be seen as a social structure that creates a kind of micro society with its construction, cultivation and maintenance. With its dimension that prioritizes participation, it aims to awaken a sense of ethical responsibility to protect our local and global environment.
After the exhibition, Sakip Sabanci Museum will invite the audience to adopt the plants in order to continue Denes' nature-sensitive approach. Instead of disintegrating and disappearing, the monument will continue to live through small pieces adopted by the community that will share it. Denes ' Manifesto will continue to remind us of the micro community that came together to create this work and the Living Pyramid.
More information on the event can be found here.