Arcanum at the Airport, Finally!

We installed the show on the night of Sunday, November 16th. For some reason, that I am sure is vitally important to the airport authorities, the cases are emptied at 8:00PM and the new artists start installing at 8:30. I am sure this is considered the official low traffic time at the airport. But it can make for a rather late night.

I spent Sunday doing the math for the install, gathering absolutely everything I could imagine needing, and packing the car completely full (as our first snow started to fall). And then an amazing thing happened: For the first time in months I enjoyed an afternoon nap! (all in preparation for the late night of course.) Thankfully I didn’t have to do the installation alone, I enlisted the assistance of Back Space star, bookmaker and crafty craftswoman Chelsea van der Meer.

For the most part the installation went well. There were some leveling issues (level doesn’t look level because the case isn’t level so I had to level it according to the case not the earth.) and we had to reposition the mounting system after the discovery of some faulty math, (it is not an installation without some faulty math) but in general it went very smoothly. I was so pleasantly surprised at how putting the trophies on a glass shelf, in a display case, under lights, against a dark gray fabric background suddenly contextualizes them in such a pronounced way. Their presentation suddenly seemed so legit.

Shocking to me was how it seemed like the whole installation took maybe 2 hours to do but when I looked at my watch at the end it was 12:30. Where did 4 hours, half a work day, suddenly go? Must have been having fun.

Thanks to Chelsea van der Meer for her installation assistance, to Sarah Zajac for her work 3D modeling the trophy figurines and to Julia Muney Moore, the curator of art at the airport, for inviting me to show my Arcanum Research work.