Our ongoing relationship with 14-18 NOW has led us to yet another poignant and successful installation of ‘Poppies: Wave’, this time at Fort Nelson in Hampshire. Four years on from their original installation at the Tower of London, the ‘Wave’ element of the multi-faceted piece, conceived to commemorate the centenary of World War One, is in its final year of touring the UK. Having previously been exhibited at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Shoeburyness, it will remain in its current position for the next three months. The original installation saw 888,246 poppies displayed, one for every British or Colonial life lost between 1914 and 1918. Continue Reading…
Category: Exhibitions
10
Apr
Apr
As part of our #25yearsofmtec celebrations, where we are looking back over some of our favourite projects, we are looking at the relocation and installation of one of Barry Flanagan’s momentus hare sculptures. Barry Flanagan has been a very important part of Mtec’s history and one of the artists whom we have worked with most consistently throughout our 25 years. We continue to work extremely closely with his estate and the installation of ‘Acrobats’ is testament to this.
Back in December 2017 we were asked to project manage the relocation of the piece at the New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury. Despite the repositioning of the work being within the same site, full provisions had to be made to move the delicate piece, the largest version made by the artist at 10m tall, to avoid any damage. The risk of flex and thus damage to the sculpture is further increased by the need to move the sculpture in its horizontal position. Due to this, and the size of the work, a bespoke travel frame was fabricated to maintain rigidity in the sculpture across its length specifically.
Having worked on the original installation of the work 15 years ago it was an honour be trusted with relocating the work and we look forward to being tasked with any further projects involving ‘Acrobats’, Barry Flanagan’s work and the New Art Centre in the future.
Further stunning images of the work in situ can be found both on the New Art Centre (@new_art_centre) and Barry Flanagan’s estate (@barryflanaganestate) on Instagram.
Image: instagram.com
@georgebaylis
14
Dec
Dec
Perhaps one of the most challenging installations of 2017 is now complete. After 3 months of 13 hour days, our team of 8 specialist technicians returned from Abu Dhabi having installed Jenny Holzer’s monumental commission ‘For Louvre Abu Dhabi’.
The artwork, comprises of 328 panels, with a combined weight of over 118 tonnes and requires an extreme level of accuracy in installation; Continue Reading…
27
Nov
Nov
Team Mtec recently headed to Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires to install Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever Bicycles’ as part of his first major South American retrospective. The retrospective, curated by Marcello Dantas, includes a number of iconic installations, sculptures, photographs and videos exploring social, economic and political inconsistencies, themes commonly broached in Weiwei’s work.
The exhibition is part of a collaboration between the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center (CCBB), Fundación Proa and Ternium, Organización Techint and also includes a program of talks and activities during its duration.
Ai Weiwei @ Fundación Proa runs until the end Feb 2018, more details can be found at their website here
17
Nov
Nov
Mtec have recently been tasked with the collection from Pangolin Editions of a new bronze cast of the iconic sculpture ‘Physical Energy’ by G. F. Watts. The fabrication and installation of the work marks a return to its original placing in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, London, 113 years after it was first in situ in 1904.Continue Reading…
06
Nov
Nov
Our latest project as proud, ongoing sponsors and supporters of the Hepworth Wakefield took place in October with the opening of Alina Szapocznikow’s latest show, Human Landscapes. Mtec coordinated the transport for the import of the artworks, as well as the complex packing of these particularly fragile artworks. Our in-house casing specialists created an innovative floating base-crate specially conceived with the reactive and delicate nature of the artwork’s concrete medium in mind, designed to withstand vibrations and movement in transit which could lead to cracking and losses. In total we fabricated 27 new, bespoke cases in our workshop which were used in collections from more than 22 lenders spread between Poland, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Argentina and UK.Continue Reading…
10
Oct
Oct
This year Mtec had its largest presence ever at Frieze Masters and Frieze London. In terms of number of vehicles going to and from the site, picture hangers and sculpture technicians on booths and the number of clients appointing Mtec to represent them, it was our busiest fair yet! We were also busy working on other projects around the South-East to coincide with the fair as well as working on client installations at our state-of-the-art viewing facilities close to London.
Our technical team were on hand to take on any last-minute jobs associated with the fair and our dedicated Artfair shipping team were ready to turn around estimate requests, making us a one-stop logistics solution for our colleagues, partners and clients. Our specialist vehicles were at LHR most mornings of the week of the fair for expedite deliveries into and out of town. In terms of consolidated transport, within the week following the fair, Mtec had two large art trucks leaving London for Europe; one serving Paris and Italy, and the other Liege and LUX airports and onto Switzerland.
This year also saw the introduction of our very own client wheels! Galleries and clients were able to borrow our MTEC bicycles to travel both onsite and between the fairsContinue Reading…
18
Sep
Sep
This year, Mtec’s #summerofsculpture, was topped with the crown jewel that is Folkestone Triennial. As our first time working on the project it was an honour to be involved with so many of the festival’s integral works; shipping, installing and project managing a number of the town’s main exhibits.
The Folkestone Triennial began in 2008 and has quickly established itself as one of the primary events in the Contemporary Art Calendar and this year saw works by Antony Gormley, Richard Woods, Michael Craig-Martin, Bob and Roberta Smith and Bill Woodrow included in the programme.
Mtec worked on the following installations which can be seen from Sep, 2 – Nov, 5 2017:Continue Reading…
18
Jul
Jul
At the 1951 Festival of Britain one sculpture inspired romantic Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, who wrote: “the linked terra-cotta man and woman fly – defying gravity and elegantly hurrying up a W.C. wall.” The Sunbathers by Peter Laszlo Peri remained untouched and unloved in the garden of the Clarendon Hotel, Blackheath following de-installation at the Festival, and attention was only drawn to its provenance after a campaign to find lost public art by Historic England.
Following an overwhelming response to a crowdfunded appeal, The Sunbathers have been restored and are now on display at their original home on the South Bank. Mtec were honoured to project manage the installation of the works at the Southbank Centre where they will remain for the next two months. In the meantime, Historic England are continuing to campaign for a more permanent home for the sculpture, you can read more about this here.
07
Jul
Jul
Following on from our installations in the Spring at UEA & CASS Sculpture Foundation, our Summer of Sculpture has continued gaining more momentum as we approach some key events in the Art World calendar.
Our summer began working with the British Council in Venice again for the Biennale. Our sister company MA-CO Italia were on hand to help with the logistics of importing and shipping Phyllida Barlow’s large sculptural works as part of our ongoing role as supporters and logistics providers of the British Pavilion.
