Plethora

PLETHORA

1991 Seventh Triennial, New Delhi, India

Commissioned by:
USIS, Arts America Program and the Government of India

Dimensions:
30’ H x 30’ W x 80’ L
(914 x 914 x 2438 cm)

Materials:
Marble, red sand, marble dust, steel, copper, wood, charcoal, walking canes, bluing, dark fertile earth, live bullock, and gold

Elements:
Incremented pole, live bullock, gold leaf, dark earth, marble dust, white marble eggs, charcoal, hammered copper sphere, walking canes, red sand, and cobalt blue pigment

Site Description:
A strip of land between a large exhibition hall and a public thoroughfare – an urban context in an old part of the new city.

Plethora was an outdoor work constructed on an elliptical plot of red sand defined by a perimeter of cobalt blue dust. Erected in the center of this ellipsis was a striking, tall, black and white banded pole. Tethered to it was a magnificent, live, white bullock (traditionally a draft animal) with gilded horns standing in a circle of dark, fertile earth. A crisp trough of white marble powder outlined this circle and defined the territory.

Diametrically opposed at each end of the ellipsis, two different mounds of material flanked the central territory. One was comprised of very perfect, enormous, white marble eggs. Opposite, a massive, conical pyre of charred wood and walking canes concealed a large, corroded copper globe.

Plethora explored the tension between opposites: equilibrium and potential.