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AGNES DENES
Agnes Denes is one of the originators of concept-based art and one of the first artists to be involved with the relationship of science to art. Since the 1960s she has investigated the physical and social sciences, philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, psychology, art history, poetry, and music, and transformed her explorations into unique works of art. A pioneer of the environmental art movement, her work involves ecological, cultural and social issues, and is often monumental in scale. An artist of enormous vision, Denes has authored several books, including Paradox and Esssence (1976), Sculptures of the Mind (1976), and Book of Dust: The Beginning and the End of Time and Thereafter (1989). In her writings, the conceptual artist Agnes Denes investigates science, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, art history, poetry, and music.
THE HUMAN ARGUMENT
The Writings of AGNES DENES
Edited and with an introduction
by KLAUS OTTMANN
Second printing, 2020
Paperback original, 320 pages, ills., $25
ISBN: 978-0-88214-569-3
Kindle/Apple Books edition, $9.99
ISBN: 978-0-88214-087-2
The Human Argument cover
 
The Human Argument spread
 

Agnes Denes is widely recognized as an artist who is able to transform her brilliant original ideas and concepts into innovative visual images and integral texts on an enormously wide range of topics and disciplines. By applying her visual philosophy to analytical writings, she has enriched our insights into problems of human and global survival.
—Peter Selz
Agnes Denes seems to straddle science and art in a way reminiscent of Leonardo.
—Donald Kuspit
In the history of art there gave been few artist’s artists—individuals who have emphasized in their work the raising of provocative questions and who have also tested the limits of art by taking it into new, unforeseen areas. Agnes Denes is one of these special artists.
—Robert Hobbs
Denes is a visionary artist … a seer with an all-encompassing vision.
—Lowery Stokes Sims