Untitled ("The peacock likes to sit on gates or fenceposts and allow his tail to hang down. A peacock on a fencepost is a superb sight. Six or seven peacocks on a gate is beyond description, but it is not very good for the gate. Our fenceposts tend to lean and all our gates open diagonally.")

Images(8)

Untitled ("The peacock likes to sit on gates or fenceposts and allow his tail to hang down. A peacock on a fencepost is a superb sight. Six or seven peacocks on a gate is beyond description, but it is not very good for the gate. Our fenceposts tend to lean and all our gates open diagonally.")

Object NameSculpture

Artist Roni Horn (American, b. 1955)

Made FromGlass

Date2013

TechniqueCast

SizeOverall H: 50.2 cm, Diam (max): 91.5 cm

Accession Number2015.4.2

Credit LinePurchased with special funds provided by Corning Incorporated in honor of the opening of the Contemporary Art + Design Wing, March 2015

Curatorial Area(s)

Postwar and Contemporary

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

Literary themes appear throughout Roni Horn's work. The subtitle of this sculpture comes from a collection of interviews with the American writer Flannery O'Connor. At the end of her life, O'Connor lived on her family's dairy farm, where she raised different kinds of birds, including pet peacocks. Horn believes the most ideal expression of color is found in glass. Like a pool of water, her sculptures capture and reflect moments of instability and change as they are exposed to light or to the shadows of an overcast day.

Place Made

United States, NY, New York City (designed)

Physical DescriptionSculpture, "Untitled ("The peacock likes to sit on gates or fenceposts and allow his tail to hang down. A peacock on a fencepost is a superb sight. Six or seven peacocks on a gate is beyond description, but it is not very good for the gate. Our fenceposts tend to lean and all our gates open diagonally.")". Solid cast lime-green glass with as-cast surfaces, oculus top. Lime-green glass, cast. Large and solid cylindrical cast glass sculpture, cast in one block. Molten glass is released into the mold over a 24-hour period and then the glass is annealed for three to four months. Mold marks and other flaws on the sides of the sculpture have been left as is and not removed, so that the sculpture appears in a "natural" state. The glass at the top of the open mold remains smooth and transparent, as the glass has had no contact with anything other than air and heat. The sculpture weighs 1,750 pounds.
Provenance

Provenance Remark

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