Map Projections: The Egg 1976

Agnes Denes offers us "Map Projections: The Egg", a work where cartography meets the symbol of life. The world is rendered within the form of an egg, an ancient symbol of birth and potential. This motif echoes across millennia, from ancient cosmologies where the world emerges from a cosmic egg to the Renaissance, where the egg symbolizes creation and the origin of life. Consider Piero della Francesca's "Montefeltro Altarpiece," where an egg hangs above the Virgin Mary, a symbol of immaculate conception and divine creation, thus echoing the symbolic language of birth and origin. The egg, as a symbol, engages our deepest subconscious, tapping into a collective memory of beginnings. It speaks to the cyclical nature of existence: birth, death, and rebirth. This is not a linear progression, but a continuous return, a cultural echo resonating through time.