Sunnylands Center & Gardens is home to the first in a series of new, outdoor art commissions that will be presented as part of the fifth edition of Desert X in the Coachella Valley from March 8 to May 11, 2025.

The piece at Sunnylands, a monumental step pyramid planted with rows of vegetation native to the region, is titled, The Living Pyramid.  Its creator, Agnes Denes, is a leading figure among the concept-based artists who emerged to international attention in the 1960s and 1970s. She was born in Budapest in 1931 and has lived in New York since the 1950s.

While the Desert X art biennial opens in March, The Living Pyramid is currently available for viewing by the public during Sunnylands’ operating hours, 8:30 am to 4 pm, Wednesday through Sunday.  Parking and admission are free.

The structure and appearance of the pyramid at Sunnylands is expected to change in accordance with the slow growth cycles of the desert. Over the course of six months, the plants it carries will sprout and bloom, some will go to seed, some will die.

“The Living Pyramid is the most iconic and recurring expression of the pioneer of environmental art Agnes Denes’ 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,” Neville Wakefield, Desert X’s artistic director, said in a statement.

The Living Pyramid was originally commissioned in 2015 by Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City. The work has subsequently been displayed at documenta 14, Kassel (2017); the Sakip Sabanci Museum, Istanbul (2022); the Hayward Gallery, London (2023) and will be exhibited at MUDAM (Museum of Modern Art) Luxembourg in 2025.

Denes’s intention is for the work to be displayed at locations throughout the world and to feature indigenous plants in each location.

“This new work of The Living Pyramid is planted material, yet a new meaning,” Denes said. “Transformed into blossoms, the pyramid renews itself as evolution does to our species. The rigid angle becomes an arc to reach above, to reach what it wishes to reach. It is not just planting, but planting the paradox, a structured edifice of soil and grain, not on a farm or field, but in the heart of a busy mega-city or various parts of our world. It is planting the seed into soil  and human minds.”

Sunnylands Center & Gardens is a cultural partner of Desert X. In addition to hosting Denes’s The Living Pyramid for Desert X 2025, it has provided space for Desert X works and performances by women artists from around the world since 2017, including Lita Albuquerque, Iman Issa, Ghada Amer, and Paloma Contreras Lomas.