Installation and Testing Procedure

These are two separate operations, that – in the case of particularly large or highly complex sculptures – both are carried out before sending the work of art to its final destination.
The assembling consists in assembling the sculpture with all its dismantled components; if the art work is exceptionally large, it will be made up in transportable parts which will then be finally assembled on arrival at its destination.
The testing out procedure checks out that all the operations for the sculpture’s assembling, setting up and positioning in its final destination, have been successfully executed.

The installation of Giuseppe Penone’s ‘Idee di Pietra’, together with Ivan Theimer’s monumental sculpture group ‘Les Portes pour la Vandée’, with Saddam Hussein’s statue and with Bonanno Pisano’s ‘Porta di San Ranieri’, was undoubtedly one of the most complex and demanding tasks imaginable. Inside the sculpture, a stainless steel armature was inserted that branched out from the tree’s roots right up to the top of the smallest branches: this was not only to ensure the artwork’s stability but also for the need to keep the stones hanging suspended – real stones and therefore very heavy.
The sculpture is made up of some parts that can be dismantled in order to be transported. However, the most difficult part was certainly the method for lodging the stones in the forking of the branches.