‘Wheatfield—An Inspiration. The Seed is in the Ground’ at Tinworks Art

By Taylor Owens CONTENT MARKETING LEAD

Established in 2019, Tinworks Art has provided seasonal annual programming on site on the corner of East Cottonwood Street and North Ida Avenue, as well as a variety of spaces around Bozeman. From June 15  through Oct. 19, Tinworks will house “Wheatfield—An Inspiration. The Seed is in the Ground” at their location in the northeast neighborhood. 

“One of the first works I thought of that I would love to bring to Tinworks, and Montana, is Agnes Denes’ ‘Wheatfield,’” Jenny Moore, director at Tinworks Art, said. “In 1982, Agnes planted a two-acre field of wheat in lower Manhattan [New York] in the landfill that was created from the construction of the World Trade Centers. And it’s such a significant, iconic, public, ecological artwork, and it lives in the imagination and minds and histories of so many folks.” 

Moore was first exposed to Denes’ piece when she moved to New York in the late 1990s.

“This golden field of wheat has been such an important image in my mind all these years as I’ve worked with contemporary art,” Moore said. “When I came to Bozeman and started to understand the period of growth that the city is going through right now; questions of land value; the loss of agricultural land; certainly food insecurity that we’re dealing with globally; how we value the land; all of these topics that Agnes raised 42 years ago with ‘Wheatfield—A Confrontation’ are unfortunately still very pertinent today. So Agnes was the first artist that I reached out to and asked if she would reconsider the work, and we’re incredibly honored and humbled that Agnes accepted the invitation.”

Denes has since created a version of the work in London and a much larger version in Milan, however her acceptance of the invitation to showcase “Wheatfield—An Inspiration. The seed is in the ground” in Bozeman has been the first time she has reconsidered her previous artwork in an American context once more. Bozeman, and Tinworks Art, is the first American institution and place to house a recreation of her original work. 

“We’re really just beyond thrilled that she was inspired to actually not just reconsider ‘Wheatfield,’ but inspired to make a whole new work,” Moore said. “For Agnes, the distinction between ‘Wheatfield: A Confrontation’ in 1982, and ‘Wheatfield: An Inspiration. The seed is in the ground,’ which for her is a whole new work, operates on many levels. It’s certainly a different context.”

Bozeman is not New York City, but it is a city that is grappling with a lot of the issues that ‘Wheatfield—A Confrontation’ initially raised. Tinworks Art is in the northeast neighborhood of Bozeman, which houses the vestiges of a field, a complex of industrial and mill buildings, and residential and mixed-use buildings. This certain character of the neighborhood, as well as its evolution with modern growth, was particularly interesting to Denes. This artwork will be created as an opportunity to engage the local community to think creatively about not just how we value the land, but how we use the land. 

“In this new work, there is an invitation to the community to plant wheat in solidarity and on any fallow piece of land available to them,” Moore said. “What an amazing opportunity for a community to consider how we value land, how we use land, how we produce food in our region with the substantial loss of agricultural land around Bozeman. As well as the opportunity for the community to help tend the field, to weed the field, and then harvest. We’ve really expanded on those elements here.”

Guests at Tinworks will have the opportunity to visit the wheatfield as it grows and matures, as well as volunteer and work the land by harvesting the wheat and then processing the wheat on site and turning it into flour. 

“It’s an opportunity for people to actually be in that living, growing space and to think about what it means sensorially,” Moore said. “Then the opportunity to go all the way from planting to tending to harvesting and then processing. I think that’s such an exciting, positive way to bring people together in a very active and engaged way.”

Community involvement and inspiring the public through this artwork is the intention behind the installation for Denes. Due to the development of agricultural land, it is valuable to allow for a space for people to come and experience the process of growth and harvesting, while also coming together as a community to think about and solve significant problems we are all facing. 

“We have had the opportunity and the real pleasure to partner with folks in the Plant Sciences Department at MSU,” Moore said. “And even those folks who work so closely with wheat often don’t physically harvest it. It’s such a laborious practice and certainly a skill that for some folks might have been lost. There will certainly be an opportunity for the community to come on site and understand what it means to physically harvest wheat and transform it into flour that then can be baked.”

Tinworks will also be partnering with Wild Crumb once the wheat has been processed into flour. Wild Crumb will utilize the flour to make bread and other baked good that will be available to the public. 

“It’s been such a fantastic opportunity to find hope and inspiration from working with farmers,” Moore said. “I think they have to be kind of endlessly optimistic and have a bit of faith in mother nature that it will hopefully all work out. And as of last week, we have a fantastic stand of winter wheat that’s sprouting and so fingers crossed that it will continue to grow as we hope that it can.”

The project further expands through the circulation of “Questionnaire,” a work in which Denes poses questions about the most pressing issues facing humanity, like artificial intelligence and global warming. On site, there will be a plaque that links with a QR code to a questionnaire so that guests can continually respond and participate with the artwork in perpetuity. A version of one of the questions will resemble “What will be more essential for human survival to be practical or creative?” 

Denes will choose responses from among the submissions, which will be recorded and played as part of a sound work installed at Tinworks for the 2024 season.

“They are not easy questions,” Moore said. “I’m always interested when people can distill their answer to one word because they’re very profound questions, and they really compel you to think deeply about the issues that are facing humanity. But what I always find so remarkable about Agnes’s work over the 50-60 years that she’s been practicing is that it’s very optimistic and hopeful and it’s about posing solutions to our problems, not just lamenting the place that humanity has found itself in.”

When asked what readers should consider before going to view “Wheatfield—An Inspiration. The seed is in the ground,” Moore responded with:

“The power of art to take us to places we can’t get to on our own.”

Tinworks will be distributing spring wheat seeds at the Gallatin Valley Earth Day celebration on April 20 at the Gallatin Valley Fairgrounds, as well as at The LARK Hotel for Give Big Gallatin Valley on May 3, for people to plant in participation and solidarity with “Wheatfield—An Inspiration. The seed is in the ground.”