Balanced Safety Stanchion
Do Not Touch (Balanced Safety Stanchion)
3' x 1" iron bar, 1/4" solid braid nylon cord, eye-hooks
This work was produced in response to a need to develop a physical barrier to prevent viewers at Catherine J. Smith Gallery from getting too close to the gallery wall and thus disturbing the fragile equilibrium of the Do Not Touch (Counterbalanced Shelves) and Do Not Touch (Counterbalanced Shelves Centered). A cord (attached to one wall by an eye-hook) was threaded through a metal bar (leaning diagonally from the corner of the gallery) to arrive at an eye-hook on an adjacent wall. Pulled taut into an L-shaped form by the weight of the tilted bar, the cord, in turn keeps the bar from falling and, in the process, hinders viewers from toppling the contents on the two sets of shelves. A precariously balanced object protects other precariously balanced objects. Richard Torchia
