Incredible art. Any time I see marble look like cloth, it blows my mind.
As to the physics, the amount of material holding up the hammock is likely much more significant than it appears. Not to say it isn’t delicate, I’m sure much side to side movement would break it quite easily, but the vertical strength is probably significantly more than it seems, it’s sort of like a bridge with a truck on it…
How do they move this between exhibitions? Put it in a box, cover it in plastic and fill it with plaster or PU foam?
Sort of. Put it in a crate, then put wooden batons across to support each section of the sculpture and stop it moving. Each wooden baton is covered in polyethylene foam. Depending on the material of the sculpture, it may be wrapped in plastic, tissue or fabric.
Once it’s barred into the crate and cannot wobble about at all, it’s sealed up, then moved about on a palette truck or hand-forklift.
Example of a sculpture half-packed:
My brain always intuitively parses this shit as literal witchcraft. Like:
My brain: oh my God, that woman was just lounging around and someone turned her to stone and put her in display
Me: no, what you’re seeing is just incredible skill in sculpting marble. We’ve been through this before
My brain: No but look at that fabric! It’s real fabric — or it was, before it was turned to stone!
It’s so impressive that it literally doesn’t compute to me, and I have to remind myself that this is indeed stone.
Occam’s razor says it gotta be antigravity
I mean, isn’t it basically a bench?
Oh, I’d sit on that.
On the physics, marble on the legs and torso seem quite dense where they connect to the pillars, and also the base seems complete and flat, the three likely causing enough pressure for the center of the piece to not be crushed under its own weight.
load-bearing dangly arm
User thinkyfish in another comment also mentioned the cloth at both ends of the hammock are solid stone too, adding even more resistance to the sculpture. Fantastic work not just in beauty, but engineering too.
Bro, did you just call her fat?
But really, non contaminated marble is very strong in a load bearing sense, and the ends of the statue are plenty thick enough to support that weight. The arm that rests on the ground as well was much more likely there to be a support to keep the arm from getting damaged, and not a part made to keep the statue from snapping elsewhere.
It really does look like a marble blanket is draped over the statue. But the “blanket” is structural. So is the arm.
I love these sculptures and the immense talent behind them. Boobies or not, this is incredible work.
Assuming the figure is mostly hollow and the floor is a couple inches solid or the sides “blankets” are very supporting.
