Agnes Denes makes her mark at Firstsite

The clean contemporary space of Firstsite in Colchester was a nice breathing space between the excesses of Christmas and the New Year with its hopeful resolutions and quickly broken promises. On show were the works of Agnes Denes http://www.firstsite.uk.net/page/agnes-denes, her drawings mathematical and meticulous recalling the works of Leonardo da Vinci, beautiful, repetitious and profound. The exhibition also showed the photographic records of some of her environmental projects, in particular the planting of a field of Golden Wheat in Lower Manhattan in 1982. Amongst these philosophically challenging exhibits there was an unexpected flash of humour, a small sequence of body prints; smudgy, uncontrolled and tactile their presence in the exhibition added a corporeal earthiness. I really like that, the unexpected adding its edgy touch.

Baubles