Continuing our ongoing relationship with the NGV, Higgins recently completed building and painting works in preparation for their latest special exhibition ‘A Golden Age of China – Qianlong Emperor’. The first part of the project involved demolition of the completed Jean Paul Gautier exhibition, which itself took 3 weeks to build and only 2 days to demolish using 6 men.
For the current Qianlong exhibition, we constructed and supplied special display cabinets to house Chinese artwork glazing. Cabinets varied in size with some being as large as 12m wide x 6m high x 0.5m deep. Other MDF cases to hold artwork had to be built and painted off site, with some constructed in 4 pieces to create a whole case being 4m high x 3m wide.
All works were completed within 3 weeks using a team of 6 carpenters, 4 painters, 3 plasters and 1 Project Manager all on site full-time, often 15 hours, 6 days a week. Our Project/Site Manager coordinated all trades, liaising and meeting daily with designers, project managers and overseeing other trades provided by NGV for the project.
The end product is a beautiful space that showcases truly impressive and lavish works including paintings, robes, objet d’art and ceremonial weapons.