Sculpture “The Living Pyramid” by Dénes Ágnes

I returned today from a long weekend visiting my brother Dan in the Coachella Valley. Saturday began on a dubious note: We visited an installation of the Desert X 2025 art show at Summerlands in Rancho Mirage. Since the artist was the Hungarian-born Dénes Ágnes, we expected great things, being self-professed Hungarians ourselves.

What we saw was a plywood pyramid painted white, planted with native desert plants, that is on view at Summerlands until May 11, 2025. Ah, well, I guess not all Hungarian art works are great.

I was reminded of Maya pyramids in Yucatán that were not rebuilt by archeologists, such as this pyramid I photographed at Sayil in the Puuc Highlands in January 2020:

Maya Pyramid at Sayil

Another point of comparison is one of English artist Frederick Catherwood’s engravings in the 1841 classic by John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán:

The Castillo at Chichén Itzá Engraved by Frederick Catherwood

I guess I’m too much in love with the impressive Maya ruins in Mexico and Central America to accept Dénes’s “The Living Pyramid” with anything other than a shrug. Nice try, but no cigar.