Agnes Denes’s Idealistic Projects Refuse to Accept Apocalypse as Inevitable

The introductory wall text for the Shed’s grand retrospective of the work of Hungarian-American artist Agnes Denes (b. 1931), “Absolutes and Intermediates,” cites Leonardo da Vinci as a like artistic mind (as do numerous passages in the catalogue). The upper floor of the show presents an exhaustive survey of Denes’s work from the 1960s to the present day—drawings dotted with mathematical figures; anatomical studies and finely rendered graphs; and records of her effo