Installation Mock-up

I thought I would post a few photos of a painting installation mock-up our Installer/Designer came up with. Apparently he will only have a day or so to hang an entire show, so he decided to mock-up the walls like you see below:

Attachment 1205

He cut butcher paper the exact size of the paintings, hung a string for our hanging height and then simply folded the paper in half to get the painting center line.

Attachment 1204

It should be short work on hanging day for one person to measure for the hangers right on the paper, hammer them in (or perhaps mark them through the paper) and pull the paper off.

It also helped the vinyl lettering guy install text on the walls.

So, if you find yourself with time on your hands a few days before a super short time-frame install, try this out.

Jason

I appreciate simple things that work. This is a great system. Thanks for sharing.

I displayed a buffalo robe several years ago. We had some plexiglass clips made. they were bent slightly in the middle and rounded and polished. Two holes were drilled on one side of the center point. the furthest from center held the clip in place and the other hole was screwed in to create spring tension on the other end. We put as many as it took to support it all the way around.

Wow! He has time to do that? What a luxury.=P=

I also have found this works well - sometimes we even had print out images of the works just so curators could understand how their install design would look - this also ocassionally meant we didn't have to move works around as much once all was installed. Yes this takes time but if you have permanent staff its a great way to employ people before an install as there is always time to get someone onto a job like this as it saves time when you finally get the works which can often be last minute. Its using time effectively espically in a museum technical context I have found. Thanks for posting this.

I have been able to do this on a number of occasions. It can work out really well but I do have a word of caution. If your show includes loan items make sure that the dimensions you get are accurate. You might actually ask the person who is sending them to personally verify them or call the other institutions prep. There can be a tendency at times for institutions to send dimensions right out of their accession records which are usually of the canvas itself. Occasionally objects get reframed as well. There is nothing like having your wall all perfectly spaced and then having the courier come in late in the installation with an object is not the size that you are expecting and then having to re-hang a whole wall (especially if you have more than one or two other loan objects in the wall that can't be moved without the courier present). Also like so many other aspects of the job it can be a great method but even when perfectly executed it won't necessarily eliminate the very real factor of curatorial indecision!

Cool to know others do this too. We have found it works well for us when on a time crunch. Sometimes we will cut them out of cardboard instead as it allows for easier shuffling when arranging final placement. With cardboard we just lean them against the wall on the floor in the usual method and then they are taped up on the wall for final approval or setting the hanging height after the spacing is done. We only use this when we absolutely have to but sometimes with pieces coming from different places for the same show it can save us if arrival times are slightly staggered and we have to move forward with the pieces we have. I second T. Ashley's suggestion, we always double check the measurements ( as I am sure you would do too) after arrival as we have had a few surprises when it comes to installing. Thanks for sharing.

Planning is half the work.��