All in a Day’s Work

blog intro
After almost a year on the MCA Plaza, Alexandre da Cunha’s exhibition of construction-related objects comes down Monday. The installation, which only took a day, required eight semi trucks, one crane, and a lot of number-crunching engineers to pull off. Below we interpret our Chief of Exhibition Production's notes on the installation in drawings.

install info for biscuit
DIMENSIONS
129 1/2 x 129 1/2 x 32 in.
- WEIGHT
approx. 29,000 lbs
- INSTALL
Rests on a steel plate and post mount
The 8 ft x 8 ft x 1 in. plate rests on a slab and is buried under the pavers
A post welded to the plate was inserted into a PVC-lined 8-inch opening in the sculpture and extends approx. 50 inches upward.

install info for figurehead
DIMENSIONS
- 420 x 140 x 140 in.
(does not take into account the 4–5 inches buried under the pavers)
- WEIGHT
approx. 120,000 lbs
- INSTALL
Rests on a 12 ft x 12 ft x 6 ft concrete-reinforced foundation that was used for Martin Creed and Amanda Ross-Ho

install info
All the concretes are not in fact found. Using industry standard widths and heights, the artist chose/designed where and how big all the openings for the forms were to be before they were made.
All the forms were made locally in Elgin at a company called Concrete Specialties.
Each concrete form had to come separately on a tractor trailer flatbed because of their weight.
Between the crane and the artwork 8 tractor trailers were required.
A 265-ton crane was used for lift and reach for all three sculptures.
All the pieces were lifted and placed in a single day.
None of the sculptures have any mechanical connections to other parts or the ground.