अर्थ | Artha

Prashant Pandey comes from a family of marble sculptors in Jaipur who have been practicing the art for at least four consecutive generations. But in stark contrast to this tradition of chipping away at stone to create (sacred) statues of gods and goddesses, Pandey works with that which is discarded and often ostensibly ‘impure’. He is known for recycling objects that are past their use value—from marble blast and chunks of tar to visceral rejects like urine, sweat and blood—to create artworks that question cultural notions of utility and waste.

अर्थ | Artha (2014) is an installation in the shape of a diamond, a universal symbol of prosperity, wealth and vanity. The seductive red translucence of this sculpture gives way to shock on encountering the objects from which it derives its colour–10,000 discarded slides of blood containing blood drawn from a large number of people including the artist.

In creating a likeness of one of the most precious commodities in the world in blood slides that are arranged like brickwork, Pandey creates a juxtaposition that evokes multiple connections between money, violence and mortality. The work acts as an unsettling interruption, forcing a confrontation with the sheer corporeality of our existence.

As Pandey points out, the Sanskrit word ‘Artha’ refers both to the pursuit of material wealth and the quest for meaning. According to him, the work seeks to recall the sacrifices made in the course of colonisation and the quest for land, power and wealth, and asks questions about “the price of progress and the relationship between worldly possessions and the purpose of life”.