Hunter Museum of American Art

As visitors  discover the exhibition, I Heard a Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill, we thought you might enjoy a look behind the scenes as the Hunter staff prepared the exhibit.

Throughout the two-week installation, I Heard a Voice presented a unique set of challenges due to the scope of the work, both in terms of the number of and sizes of the pieces as well as the wide variety of media, including works made from fabric, paper, horse hair and even bronze.

Because the exhibit is so large and complex, Lesley Dill sent a representative from her studio to guide the Hunter staff through installing the larger works. Erin Waldner, who assisted Lesley in creating many of the pieces in I Heard a Voice, led us through the details of installing Rush, Rise and Word Messengers.

Of the 34 pieces in the show, Rush proved the most complicated to install. The work came to us in nine separate sections, each rolled onto 10-foot spools which traveled in their own slots inside three crates. Once these component sheets of foil and silk were unrolled and laid out for inspection, they covered almost the entire floor of both temporary exhibition galleries!

Before the installation could begin, we examined each of the nine sections to locate the old nail holes which were used to fasten the pieces to the wall. After marking these holes with removable painter’s tape, we began installing the first section containing the seated person with rows of figures emanating from its back. Five people were needed to hold each foil section in place while a sixth tacked small nails through the existing holes to attach the panel to the wall. This process continued down the piece as each following section overlapped the previous one to create the uninterrupted flow of images.

Rush was designed to be installed on a 60-foot wall, yet our longest wall is roughly 50 feet long, forcing us to reconfigure the layout of the component pieces to fit our space and maintain the artist’s vision of the completed piece. By arranging a scale model of the panels on paper, we determined that only seven of the nine components would be required for the final installation. With careful attention to the work’s overall continuity and integrity, the final few sections were attached to the wall in the same method.

Our exhibits staff had to work from our personnel lift or ladders to hang the uppermost sections at the top of our 16-foot ceilings.

Regardless of these minor changes, Rush remains a staggering piece to witness.

While I Heard a Voice is on view in the galleries, the exhibition staff will be busy building crates so that the artwork will remain safe as it travels on to five more venues before the art returns to its owners in early 2011.

John Thornbury, Exhibits Preparator