#Railroad spike identification full#

The challenge is open to all blacksmiths worldwide with categories for professional, amateur, and youth. Similar to the popular 150 mm Challenge originated by the Hereford College of Arts, this challenge allows blacksmiths to use a single common American railroad spike (see dimensions and requirements below) to create an object of their choosing and imagination from a shared material. At this moment in time, six years later, no plans have been announced for its re-installation.ĪLL IMAGES AND TEXT ON THIS SITE ARE COPYRIGHT CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGENĪND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE ARTISTS.The California Blacksmith Association (CBA) will host a special gallery of blacksmiths’ work that conforms to the “Railroad Spike Challenge” at the 2023 CBA Spring Conference in Vista, California! The Sol LeWitt mural remains in place and Museum officials have promised that the Stake Hitch would be re-installed for a year during the decade after its removal. In June 2001, a new Director of the Museum, John Lane announced his plan to remove the Stake Hitch, which he considered an obstacle to 'an active program of temporary exhibitions.' We refused alternative sites for the sculpture, Coosje stating 'The Stake Hitch was made for one site only and has no value elsewhere.' Unfortunately a 1990 federal law making it difficult to remove site-specific works relates only to projects done after that date.ĭespite its status as an icon of the Museum and one of the 'Top Ten Treasures' in the permanent collection prominently featured in the guide to the Museum, and its identification as an icon of Dallas, the sculpture was removed on August 22. Instead, conventionally sized paintings from the Museum collection were hung on the walls of the room. The Stake Hitch was installed in 1984, but the project of a room devoted solely to large permanent works did not proceed any further.

It is fastened at the top as if to pass effortlessly through the ceiling. 20 inches in diameter and about 150 feet long, the 'rope' is voluptuously tied around the 'stake' in a knot described as a Stake Hitch in Ashley's Book of Knots. The 'rope', which was likened to a tornado, was built up of ventilation ducts covered with foam 'strands' sprayed with resin and chopped fiberglass finished in colorful enamels. The sculpture in effect became a part of the architecture, a fact recognized both by Barnes and the director of the Museum, Harry Parker.Ī sword-like, faceted geometric shape was developed for the 'stake' freely based on a railroad spike, a tent peg or animal tether, made of aluminum roughened with a coating of epoxy.

#Railroad spike identification full#

The part of the sculpture sunk into the floor remained mysterious as well: the bottom of the 'stake' was executed in full detail but since the part occupied the Museum's receiving area, it was not available for public viewing. The imagined destination of the rope beyond the Museum added to the scale of the work and gave it an outdoor character. We proposed a sculpture in the form of a 'stake', sunk in the floor, to which a rope was tied that extended, in a long, taut curve into the ceiling of the vault. The challenge, as we saw it, was to reach the upper area of the vault and link it to the rest of the room. The artist Sol LeWitt was also asked to provide a large mural at one end of the vault. In 1981, we were commissioned to create a sculpture as part of a group of works to be permanently installed in a vast 45 foot high barrel-vaulted space in the center of the new Dallas Museum of Art, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes.

Total height, including upper and lower floor: 53 ft. (0.51 m) diameter length, knot to ceiling: 40 ft. Rope: polyurethane foam, plastic materials, fiberglass-reinforced plastic, painted with latex Stake: aluminum, steel, resin, painted with polyurethane enamel