fromThe Art Newspaper - International art news and events
4 months ago'Like a carefully choreographed performance': meet the logistics professionals who bring art fairs to life
We presented Gianpietro Carlesso's mammoth, monumental work Torre di Saba (2009) at Frieze Sculpture in 2020. It weighs over 200kg and stands an imposing 268cm high, but the artist wanted the piece to be one with the nature that surrounds it, so he chose to not present it on a traditional plinth. Mtec, who handle the logistics for Frieze Sculpture, had to dig a hole, pour a concrete base in and add hidden pins, then put topsoil and new turf to match the surroundings of the park and hide the concrete. It required a structural engineer for the foundations and wind-load calculations. To install it were three technicians plus Carlesso and me, and the equipment included a lorry-mounted crane, a mini digger, a telehandler and a wacker plate [to compact the soil]. To complicate matters further, installation was done on a heavy rainy day! But by the end, the Lebanese tree wood of the sculpture really felt as if it grew out of the ground-a