When people visit an exhibition, generally they view the objects, read the labels and information panels, maybe comment on the design of the show, but rarely, I think, wonder about what it actually takes for the objects to come together for the short span of the exhibition. Working on any installation has its own complications, for sure, but a show as beautiful and complex as Assyria to Iberia can be a roller-coaster ride of preparation. Five years, in fact, from concept to installation, while objects are selected, contracts negotiated and signed, catalogues written, and designs finalized. Then comes the day of reckoning . . . the first day of installation, when the couriers from the lending institutions begin arriving with their objects. For Assyria to Iberia, we borrowed objects from forty-one institutions worldwide, whose couriers all seemed to want to come at the same time!
Couriers come in all shapes and sizes: professional, thorough, some as tough as nails, however, all of them are there for one purpose—to protect and install their objects safely. To help them achieve this, the Museum has excellent teams of designers, riggers, preparators, conservation staff, carpenters, and pretty much every other kind of specialist, without whom an exhibition of this nature would be impossible to put on. Our preparators, for example, made more than 150 mounts for this show alone, each one unique and each one a work of art in its own right, yet designed and manufactured so well that the eye of the visitor doesn't really notice it (fig. 1). It's also usually about this time that you discover that some of the dimensions you have for pieces are subtlety wrong, or that an object you felt would sit perfectly on a plinth turns out to be too big.
Fig. 1. One of more than 150 mounts made for the exhibition. This one made to discreetly but expertly display the Fibula with rosettes, MLA 1742/20. The Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. Image © Tim Healing
The first pieces to be installed were the Assyrian reliefs from the British Museum. Traveling on large wooden modules, which still sported the purple paint from their previous display, these huge pieces took more than two days to install. Arriving through a hole knocked though the wall to make direct use of the freight elevator located nearby, these highly dramatic works of art were expertly maneuvered onto their display plinths by the Met's professional team of riggers, then shuffled up and interlinked before being secured to the wall. The royal purple modules were then repainted to match the walls. It's amazing how many coats of paint are needed to cover purple!
From the Williams College Museum, we were fortunate to borrow another Assyrian relief, which arrived soon after the British Museum pieces. Not on a module, this piece came with a metal backing frame which showed an alternative method of display (fig. 2), but once again, the piece was placed with precision by the riggers. Even after more than twenty years of working in the museum world, in varying institutions, I never fail to feel exhilarated by seeing a huge piece of sculpture raised on a forklift or gantry and lifted gracefully, as if it bore no weight at all, before being gently caressed into its final resting position.
Fig. 2. De-installation of the Assyrian relief: winged, eagle-headed genie at the Williams College Museum of Art. Gift of Sir Austen Henry Layard through Dwight W. Marsh, Class of 1842, 1851.2. © Williams College Museum of Art.
I have always enjoyed working with the larger pieces of works of art, and while, at more than six thousand pounds, the seated lady from Tell Halaf is the heaviest piece in the show, the Stele of Sargon II undoubtedly wins the award for being the trickiest piece to install. Not only is it tall and substantial in its own right (1,500 pounds), but it also sits unevenly and had to be raised on wooden slats before being secured to a specially built back wall (fig. 3).
Fig. 3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art riggers installing the Stele of Sargon II, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, VA 968. Image © Tim Healing.
One of the most enjoyable experiences for me in helping organize an exhibition of this magnitude and nature is the collegiality it allows, not only within my own institution, but also with professionals from other museums. As a result of the relationship that was established through the generous loan from Williams College, for example, the Met has reciprocated with a loan in return, and who knows what other projects may come about with other lenders in the future?
The art undoubtedly makes an exhibition, and tells a story, but how the design team presents and represents the art is what gives the display character and makes you feel that you are being taken on a unique journey through time and space—in this case, across the Mediterranean. The first time I looked through the double-sided case in the Cyprus room, before the objects were installed, my only concern was how we were going to keep the case environmentally stable. However, once I saw the beautiful cauldron with the image of the sea as a backdrop, I completely understood the choices made (fig. 4).
Fig. 4. View through one of the double-sided cases of Cauldron with griffin and siren attachments, SAL. T.79/202, and other objects from the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. Seascape didactic visible as backdrop. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The final week before opening, we pushed toward finishing on time; however, there still remained a number of star pieces to be installed. Preparators continued to make mounts and place the remaining works of art, but were now followed closely by the lighting designers, who lit the objects perfectly. There was still time for some surprises, though. Two bronze friezes from a panel of the Balawat Gates—one owned by the Musée du Louvre, the other by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore—were joined together for possibly the first time since antiquity. While it was known that the two fragments were from the same panel, it wasn't known just how closely they fitted until the second piece was installed and the two fragments joined together like an ancient jigsaw puzzle (fig. 5).
Fig. 5. The two friezes of the Balawat Gate, joined together once more. Left side: Balawat gate relief of Shalmaneser III, 54.2335A. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Right side: Balawat gate relief of Shalmaneser III - Tyre tribute, AO 14038. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The excitement could be felt by all as work continued in the Iberian Room, the final area to be installed. With the video of the underwater excavation of the Phoenician shipwreck found at Bajo de la Campana on constant loop in the background accompanied by the sounds of divers bringing up the elephant tusks from the ocean floor, the perfect ambiance was created as the installation reached its finale. Two of those tusks, along with a number of other finds from the wreck, are displayed as a sharp reminder of the dangers of seafaring in the first millennium B.C.
The final objects to be placed were from Tunisia and, fittingly—from possibly the most famous of all the Phoenician settlements—Carthage. As the final vitrine was placed over the case and secured, a spontaneous round of applause broke out as all those involved over the previous few weeks finally were allowed to relax. Now, with each visit to the exhibition, I can enjoy Assyria to Iberia for the spectacular show that it is, knowing that I still have a few months left before thinking about the de-installation, when we'll have to do everything again, but in reverse.