Painted welded steel, 134 x 94 x 78, 2006.
Ganesha is the god invoked before anything else begins, whether a journey, a marriage or a book, and “Destroyer of Obstacles” is one of his names. The obstacles here are boxes. They are pale yellow, plain and unmarked, stacked at angles, with the upper ones leaning out over his head. A closed box gives no sign of what it holds, and the obstacles that stop most undertakings are like that: bulk with no character and no face, between a person and what they set out to do.
He meets the stack armored in a scaled cuirass, a helmet and a pleated skirt, and his four hands carry the goad, the noose, a plate with a sweet on it and his broken tusk. Together they cover every way of moving something that won’t move. The goad drives it and the noose drags it. The tusk is the weapon he is said to have thrown at the demon Gajamukha. The plate is raised at the level of the upper boxes, and a sweet is the offering devotees make to him. The title promises destruction, and one hand lifts food toward the largest part of the pile. In this tradition obstacles give way to flattery and gifts as well as to force, and the sculpture shows him holding both kinds of equipment.
He stands on one of the boxes. The pile in his way is also his footing, and the boxes at his right climb higher than he does. Overcoming an obstacle in this scene means climbing it.
The mouse, his traditional mount, rears at the foot of his box with its forepaws against the side. It is the smallest figure in the piece and works at the same structure from below. An elephant gets past a barrier by pushing through it, and a mouse gets past by finding the gap. The sculpture sets both beside the stack, which is still standing and still leaning over him.
