Bharti Kher, The Waq Tree, 2009, fiberglass, iron, copper.
Installation view, Art Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland, 2009
"This work takes its origins in the story of the WaqWaq Tree and the WaqWaq islands. This mythological tree bears human heads at the end of its branches, screaming "waqwaq" when they ripe and fall. This myth goes back to as far as AD 766 and may be found in Indian, Persian and Islamic culture."
http://www.mommybysilasandstathacos.com/2013/11/01/a-conversation-with-bharti-kher/
The Waq Tree. That was a piece that came out of many stories; the first one being from a very small 18th century miniature of a Waq tree from Persia—a speaking tree. I’ve made a lot of trees and I continue to. Alexander the Great, as he crossed Persia/Iran over to the Punjab was told by his seer/psychic to visit the fabled Waq tree and this tree was supposedly in Iran. It had the heads of gargoyles, of hybrids, of animals of no known shape or form. It warned Alexander that he would die if he crossed into India. Alexander the Great was apparently poisoned as he passed through Punjab. What I had thought was that he was shot by a poisoned arrow, but he died of food poisoning, which is a bit boring. So I remember thinking about this tree and always wanting to make the speaking tree, the messenger tree, the portent for the future.
The first set of smaller trees were called the Solarum Series. People ask me about this and say they have been researching it and can’t find anything about it—it’s because I’ve made it up. I make up my own myths and hope for the best. Solarum Series sounds like a proper tree. One that I’ve researched and that’s from a proper academic, scientific journal but actually the Solarus tree is a plant, it’s not even a tree. It’s a plant that goes into other habitats and then destroys everything else, so it’s like the Cuckoo. It goes into places and takes over everything and then dominates like some alien species. The Solarum Series is a tree that speaks. If you plant it in your garden it will kill everything else and it will just keep growing because it is the heads of many, it is the minds of many, it is all me and you.
The fallen tree came about when I did the show for the Baltic. I made a small tree and I made a really huge tree. It was three times the size of the smaller one and they were like mother and child, just as I made the little elephant first and then I made the big one. I would see at some point that they are mother and child and this was very deliberately the baby Solarum and a giant monster one. And during the installation of the work the tree fell over. It came crashing down the day before the opening and we were very lucky actually that nobody got killed because it weighs about two and a half tons. The whole bloody thing fell over. And I watched it miss one of the technicians by about two feet. It made such a sound! And I looked at it and walked straight out of the gallery. My pride. And I called Subodh and said: “My tree’s fallen over. My opening is tomorrow.” And he said: “Um. Okay. Does it look good?” And I was: “What the fuck do you mean, does it look good?” And he said, “Go inside. Does it look good?” So I went in. And, “Shit yes, it looks good.” So he said, “Fix it.” So then, of course, we fixed it. And so nobody knew. I went back in and we fixed the tree and so we made it look like it hadn’t accidentally fallen over. I repaired it. There were no cracks. I just left it on the floor as it was. But if you had moved it, the whole thing would have fallen apart. The body was broken, but the heads were really strong. The heads were cast in my studio and the rest was made in China. And I don’t think it was made specifically well in terms of material or engineering.
The lesson of that was make everything in your studio so that you’ve handled the production because my works are so organic in some ways. So sometimes good things come out of accidents. I asked the installation team to cut off all the heads and send them back to my studio, and we made another tree, took a crane and pushed the tree over on the floor and it broke like it had fallen, which is different than just creating a broken tree. So it had that same sort of crashing effect of the weight, where the different branches just collapse under itself and then we re-fixed it and we reinforced it, and reassembled it. That was a really great project for me in many ways. Just in terms of pure practical production, that work really taught me how much I do know about engineering and production and I really trust myself to make the work now.
Installation view, Art Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland, 2009
"This work takes its origins in the story of the WaqWaq Tree and the WaqWaq islands. This mythological tree bears human heads at the end of its branches, screaming "waqwaq" when they ripe and fall. This myth goes back to as far as AD 766 and may be found in Indian, Persian and Islamic culture."
http://www.mommybysilasandstathacos.com/2013/11/01/a-conversation-with-bharti-kher/
The Waq Tree. That was a piece that came out of many stories; the first one being from a very small 18th century miniature of a Waq tree from Persia—a speaking tree. I’ve made a lot of trees and I continue to. Alexander the Great, as he crossed Persia/Iran over to the Punjab was told by his seer/psychic to visit the fabled Waq tree and this tree was supposedly in Iran. It had the heads of gargoyles, of hybrids, of animals of no known shape or form. It warned Alexander that he would die if he crossed into India. Alexander the Great was apparently poisoned as he passed through Punjab. What I had thought was that he was shot by a poisoned arrow, but he died of food poisoning, which is a bit boring. So I remember thinking about this tree and always wanting to make the speaking tree, the messenger tree, the portent for the future.
The first set of smaller trees were called the Solarum Series. People ask me about this and say they have been researching it and can’t find anything about it—it’s because I’ve made it up. I make up my own myths and hope for the best. Solarum Series sounds like a proper tree. One that I’ve researched and that’s from a proper academic, scientific journal but actually the Solarus tree is a plant, it’s not even a tree. It’s a plant that goes into other habitats and then destroys everything else, so it’s like the Cuckoo. It goes into places and takes over everything and then dominates like some alien species. The Solarum Series is a tree that speaks. If you plant it in your garden it will kill everything else and it will just keep growing because it is the heads of many, it is the minds of many, it is all me and you.
The fallen tree came about when I did the show for the Baltic. I made a small tree and I made a really huge tree. It was three times the size of the smaller one and they were like mother and child, just as I made the little elephant first and then I made the big one. I would see at some point that they are mother and child and this was very deliberately the baby Solarum and a giant monster one. And during the installation of the work the tree fell over. It came crashing down the day before the opening and we were very lucky actually that nobody got killed because it weighs about two and a half tons. The whole bloody thing fell over. And I watched it miss one of the technicians by about two feet. It made such a sound! And I looked at it and walked straight out of the gallery. My pride. And I called Subodh and said: “My tree’s fallen over. My opening is tomorrow.” And he said: “Um. Okay. Does it look good?” And I was: “What the fuck do you mean, does it look good?” And he said, “Go inside. Does it look good?” So I went in. And, “Shit yes, it looks good.” So he said, “Fix it.” So then, of course, we fixed it. And so nobody knew. I went back in and we fixed the tree and so we made it look like it hadn’t accidentally fallen over. I repaired it. There were no cracks. I just left it on the floor as it was. But if you had moved it, the whole thing would have fallen apart. The body was broken, but the heads were really strong. The heads were cast in my studio and the rest was made in China. And I don’t think it was made specifically well in terms of material or engineering.
The lesson of that was make everything in your studio so that you’ve handled the production because my works are so organic in some ways. So sometimes good things come out of accidents. I asked the installation team to cut off all the heads and send them back to my studio, and we made another tree, took a crane and pushed the tree over on the floor and it broke like it had fallen, which is different than just creating a broken tree. So it had that same sort of crashing effect of the weight, where the different branches just collapse under itself and then we re-fixed it and we reinforced it, and reassembled it. That was a really great project for me in many ways. Just in terms of pure practical production, that work really taught me how much I do know about engineering and production and I really trust myself to make the work now.
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