Considerations with sculpture

It is important to realize the materials you are utilizing when working with creating sculptural pieces. These are kind of interesting..


Christo and Jeanne Claude’s “The Umbrellas: Joint Project for Japan and U.S.A.” was conceptualized in 1984, but not carried out until 1991. Composed of hundreds of six-foot-tall 485-pound umbrellas installed on the coasts of California and Japan, it’s a peaceful work about interconnection. Yet, due to a failure of the joint holding an umbrella in place, Californian Lori Keevil-Matthews was crushed to death against a boulder when the umbrella escaped its socket. After the tragedy, Christo called for the installation to be dismantled, but then during the dismantling process in Japan, worker Masaaki Nakamura was 

electrocuted when the arm of the crane he was operating struck a high-voltage power line.

Yikes!


In July 2006, an inflatable, inhabitable sculpture that artist Maurice Agis had installed in Country Durham, England lifted up and blew away. The multicolored bubbles that make up the work look pretty innocuous, but factor in a few engineering mishaps and you end up with the death of two women who fell from the installation while it was in flight. Though several people including Agis himself attempted to hold the sculpture down as it floated away, the lift off was inexorable. It turns out that the construction company hired to install the piece didn’t use enough tethers to connect the work to brackets in the ground. In the end, the artist was charged with a $10,000 fine, which was later decreased to $2,500.

In 2008, another art work accident occurred at the Met: a 15th century “Saint Michael the Archangel” relief by artist Andrea della Robbia fell from its wall mounts onto the floor. Fortunately, the 62” x 32” terra-cotta relief fell during the night or early morning, so no one was harmed by the heavenly visitor. Still, not something you want to get  blessed with.

In November 1971, Richard Serra’s “Sculpture No. 3” was installed at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A sculpture formed from two 5-ton steel plates balanced against each other much like “One Ton Prop” above, the installation turned deadly when rigger Raymond Johnson was trapped underneath a plate that slipped its support and fell. Johnson was killed, and his wife filed a lawsuit against the artist, the museum, and the piece’s fabricators for wrongful death. The safety slots that would have held the steel plates in check were later discovered to have been shoddily built; in the end, it was the fabricators who were found negligent and the artist was exonerated. 

Though, according to ArtFlaw, “In October 1988, 2 workers were pinned for several minutes when the 32-ton steel Richard Serra sculpture, ‘Reading Cones,’ toppled from its jacks in the Leo Castelli gallery.” So, how safe are Serras really?

The Miami personal injury attorneys of Brais, Brais & Rusak have been retained by a college student who suffered a partially severed finger injury due to moving metal horse sculpture located at Kenneth M. Myers Bayside Park in Coconut Grove. Within the park, there are multiple kinetic steel animal sculptures created by Fredrick Prescott. What the average person does not know is the heads of these animal sculptures move. Perhaps on windy days the movement it is apparent. However, when it is not windy, the heavy steel heads do not often move creating traps for the unsuspecting. Such was the case with our client. He visited the park with his mother on a particularly non-windy day. New to Miami, neither he, nor his mother, was aware the heads of the sculptures moved. While posing for a picture with his hand resting on the horse sculpture, a puff of wind breezed over the park causing the head to move severing his finger.07/2014