The latest creation of Margraf is an interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man. The work consists of a series of marble rings shaping a 10-metre-long tunnel, is a face-to-face representation of classical times and the contemporary age. At one end stands the statue of a common man, who desperately tries to adapt to the ideal proportions of the human body, becoming an idiomatic symbol of natural stone used in art. On the other side of the tunnel, a video performance of that same man, played by a Syrian refugee. He is on a bed, in a studio in Karantina, a district of Beirut, Lebanon, and he is trying to mirror himself in Vitruvian Man. The man sleeps, moves, rests, appears and disappears from the scene, and lives his simple daily routine that is monitored in real time and full scale for the entire duration of the exhibition. The circumference of the tunnel is an extrusion of the circle, that "confines" the Vitruvian Man, made in scale. Upon entering the marble tunnel, visitors need to find a balance and stability in space.
Specifications:
Lightweight marble- Special assembly techniques using honeycomb panels and external aluminium cladding were applied to make each single circle. An exclusive Margraf experiment to make a marble with just 5 mm thickness glued to a honeycomb panel of about 10 mm.
Lighting- Every single circle feature a concealed channel, shielded with transparent film, which hosts an innovative dimmable LED system (to manage the intensity of the light) to become an individual light fixture.
Aerospace technology - The tunnel rests on a platform made using a self-levelling aerospace technology that allows installing this structure on any surface with any gradient.
Easy assembly- Advanced engineering to reduce the weight of each module to a minimum within hours. The rings have been assembled in part using a fastening system (used in the naval industry) that greatly facilitates the replacement of the marble components while leaving the base structure intact.