Desert X unveiled a new sculpture by a 93-year-old conceptual artist on Tuesday at Sunnylands Center & Gardens. The work will be presented as part of the art biennial organization’s fifth edition from March 8 to May 11.
“The Living Pyramid,” created by pioneering artist and philosopher Agnes Denes, was initially commissioned in 2015 by Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City. Since then, it has been exhibited at various prestigious venues, including documenta 14 in Kassel (2017), the Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul (2022), and the Hayward Gallery in London (2023). Additionally, it is scheduled to be displayed at MUDAM Luxembourg in 2025.
“The Living Pyramid is the most iconic and recurring expression of the pioneer of environmental art Agnes Denes’s commitment to the creation of works that speak in equal parts to the ancient structures of architecture and knowledge that shape our world view and the endless cycles of life and death that are the transformative powers of nature,” said Desert X Artistic Director Neville Wakefield in a statement.
The pyramid will feature a six-month cycle of native vegetation planted on each of its tiers, reflecting the growth cycles of the desert environment. Although Desert X officially kicks off in March, visitors to Sunnylands can see this piece now through May 11 while visiting the gardens.
“The Living Pyramid” by Agnes Denes will be on display at Sunnylands Center & Gardens in Rancho Mirage, Calif., as part of the fifth edition of Desert X from March 8 to May 11, 2025.
“While the pyramids are based on mathematics and thus achieve a kind of perfection, they contain all the imperfections they are dealing with or are representing and visualizing,” Denes said in a statement.
Denes, who was born in Budapest in 1931 and has lived in New York since the 1950s, is a pioneering figure in conceptual art. She gained international recognition during the 1960s and 1970s for her innovative approach. Denes explores art as a dynamic and evolving process, where concepts are always changing, challenging traditional notions of reality.
2025 Desert X exhibition will feature many themes
The upcoming edition of the outdoor biennial exhibition is curated by Wakefield and co-curator Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas. It will showcase artwork exploring themes like indigenous futurism, design activism, colonial power dynamics and technology’s role in contemporary society.
“The Coachella Valley is far from an empty expanse. Here, the landscape acts as a canvas of real and imagined histories, narrating tales of displacement, sovereignty and adaptation superimposed over visible testaments of time,” said Garcia-Maestas in a statement.
“The Living Pyramid” by artist Agnes Denes was originally housed at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City.
The organization has presented four exhibitions since 2017 featuring more than 80 international artists to an audience over 1 million. Organizers also established Desert X AlUla and featured exhibitions in the desert of Saudi Arabia in 2020 and 2022.
The 2023 exhibition featured 10 large-scale installations spanning the area between Desert Hot Springs and Palm Desert with themes such as a fictitious conspiracy theory, the plight of the Salton Sea, a remembrance of water flowing through the desert and more.
Some highlights included Matt Johnson’s “Sleeping Figure,” a large installation made of shipping containers at Haugen-Lehman Way and Railroad Avenue; Cahuilla artist and Anza resident Gerald Clarke’s “Immersion,” a 100-foot take on a coiled basket and a circular game board at James O. Jessie Desert Highland Unity Center in Palm Springs; and Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio’s “The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart,” a steel sculpture of a to-scale blue whale heart that was submerged in a pool of borrowed Salton-Sea water that metabolized and created energy and clean water, fueling the potential for future life in a landscape with tremendous water shortage.
(This article was updated to clarify a description.)
Desert Sun reporter Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment. He can be reached at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert X unveils new sculpture by Agnes Denes for 2025 exhibition
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