'Iceberg (r11i01)' — by Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle

This 25-foot-tall sculpture is currently floating above a spiral staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago.

It is a model of an real iceberg (r11i01) which measured 460 feet from top to bottom when sighted off Labrador in 1998.

In June 2003, Manglano–Ovalle got topographical profiles (made from sonar and radar scans) of the iceberg from the Canadian Hydraulics Center.

He spent over a year working with architect Colin Franzen to simplify the data while remaining as true as possible to the shape of the iceberg.

The fabrication of the sculpture began in September 2004.

It was designed as a matrix of more than 1,600 tubes connnected by more than 500 joints.

Tubes from 1.5 inches to 9 feet long were cut from aircraft aluminum in the artist's studio.

The plastic and nylon joints, each with its own design, were produced on six machines running 24 hours a day for 30 days.

The thousands of parts were then transported to the museum in suitcases, connected, and the sculpture was hung in the window-lighted Morton Wing staircase, where it will melt away on May 14 of this year.

More on the artist here.

[via Ginger Danto and the New York Times]