{"data":{"id":"13878","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":13878,"topgoose_id":14486,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":13878,"title":"Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space--Map Projections: The Snail","display_artist_text":"Agnes Denes","display_date":"1979","accession_number":"2001.167","dimensions":"Sheet (Irregular): 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm)","medium":"Watercolor, metallic pigments, and pen and ink on paper with screenprint on plastic overlay","department":"collection","classification":"Drawings","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from Charles Tanenbaum","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eAgnes Denes, \u003cem\u003eIsometric Systems in Isotropic Space--Map Projections: The Snail\u003c/em\u003e, 1979. Watercolor, metallic pigments, and pen and ink on paper with screenprint on plastic overlay, sheet (Irregular): 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Charles Tanenbaum 2001.167\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIsometric Systems in Isotropic Space—Map Projections: The Snail\u003c/i\u003e is from a series of studies of topographical motifs that Agnes Denes began to produce in the late 1960s. In these works, Denes plays with isometric projection, a method of visually representing three-dimensional objects in the two-dimensional format of a technical sketch. Here, she projects an accurate geographical rendering of the globe onto an unexpected structure—the form of a snail. A longtime advocate for human stewardship of and responsibility for the planet, Denes used this drawing and her other \u003ci\u003eMap Projections\u003c/i\u003e to reimagine to earth and the place of humans on it. As she remarked, “longitude and latitude lines were unraveled, points of intersection cut, continents allowed to drift, gravity tampered with [and] earth mass altered.”\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A spiraling wireframe globe with blue landmasses and curved latitude-longitude grid lines.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:20:34.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:00.886-05:00","images":[{"id":103895,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/13878/2001_167_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"345","type":"artist"}]}}}}