Packing a Bertoia sound sculpture
June 25th, 2010 
What has dozens of steel quills and makes a surprisingly lovely sound as you walk toward it? It’s an elegant steel sculpture by Italian artist and furniture designer Harry Bertoia (1915-1978), and it was my distinct pleasure as the new crating manager to pack it this week. As a recovering sculptor myself, I take particular delight in Bertoia’s lively, indeed musical, use of industrial materials and their properties.
This piece, an assortment of slender steel rods welded to a rectangular plate in a somewhat pitched “V” formation, was certainly handsome enough to look at, but the real surprise revealed itself as I stepped closer and heard the rustle of the steel rods, making a sound like brushes on a cymbal; sizzle, sizzle, sizzle…
From a crating perspective, the fragility of the piece posed certain challenges. The sculpture had come to us with an extant injury (one of the rods had fallen loose from the plate), and I wanted to ensure that the packing put only minimal stress on the welds. This meant no compression – nothing on top to flex the rods. Capturing the base was therefore the way to go, so I devised a system of padded yokes which fit together like a 3D puzzle, grasping the piece from its sturdiest point. To keep the rods from trembling in transit, I gently bundled them together and grasped with a sliding foam collar.
Packing of complex sculpture has always been one of my favorite aspects of this job. It offers the art enthusiast in me a chance to commune with works of sculpture in a very tactile way, and allows me to show of my own chops as a craftsman. The little rustling Bertoia was my favorite kind of project… pretty good day at the office!
Ian Patrick for FINE ART SHIPPING
Artwork from the collection of David K. Pressman
Tags: art enthusiast; works of sculpure, crating; welds;, industrial materials, padded yokes; sliding foam collar, steel quills; sculpture; Harry Bertoia; sculptor
July 11th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Hi Ian,
I didn’t know his work, so I’ve searched for a couple of videos.
From what I’ve seen an listened, I suppose that the slightest overslip in terms of handling and transportation could cause some modification to the sound as projected by the artist; if it would improve it or not, one doesn’t know until trying
Kind regards,
José