Friday, May 27, 2011

What's in that crate?

A reclining bronze bull, that’s what. The crate (one of seven shipped to Venice) came in the front door after a trip down the Grand Canal. Everything in this city comes by water and Michael Parekowhai’s team have set to lifting, easing, and manhandling in the tonnes that make up the work New Zealand is showing for the Venice Biennale. Not easy. 

And not made any easier by the two steps that rise up between the small dock over the water and the palazzo’s interior. The problem of how to raise massive weights even this small distance was worked out at home in New Zealand. Part of the solution was to take a homemade hoist along for the ride in one of the crates. So far the standing bull on its piano is up and running in the back garden and the second piano is out of its crate. Five to go.

Images: Top left WITC? and right, two stairs to get up, but might as well be ten. Bottom, the empties go out the way they came in.

Other posts in the What's in that crate? series: