- [Narrator] Production funding for this program is provided in part by the Elaine P. & Richard U. Wilson Foundation, the Ames Amzalak Memorial Trust, and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music) - [Jay] Monolithic works of art dot the American landscape, often soaring to heights as great as a 10 story building.

Powerful in stature, yet graceful in execution, they are the creations of a single man, who has captured the attention of art experts for many years.

- He handles this enormous scale with a kind of lightness that is very impressive.

It's just astonishing to many people how big his work is and how bold it is, and how visually arresting his work is.

- [Jay] These sculptures are the creative visions of Albert Paley.

His 40,000 square foot Rochester, New York workspace is far from the normal concept of an artist studio.

It's more like an industrial environment where his designs are executed with the assistance of a carefully selected staff.

Each member brings unique talents.

Each one is a devote of the man who has brought them together.

- [Jennifer] He makes metal look so fluid that it looks like it's just running across the top of a form.

- [Woman] The combination of the geometric and organic.

The ribbons, the flow of the steel.

- [Elizabeth] He intuitively knows what the metal is going to do and how it's going to behave.

- [Jay] When the art world extended an invitation to Paley and his team to exhibit his work on Park Avenue in New York city, it offered an exciting opportunity but also a challenge far greater than anything they had ever experienced.

- Albert originally started in school at Tyler.

He got into goldsmithing and he was running a goldsmithing studio out of his home.

That sort of moved with him when he came to Rochester.

Early on, he was very well known for his studio art jewelry, which was a larger scale type of jewelry than most people are used to.

As part of the goldsmithing process, he started designing his own tools to more tightly control that process, and because of that, he started blacksmithing so that he could actually create his own tools.

The blacksmithing was sort of an extension of the goldsmithing.

Goldsmithing was sort of solitary, one person and a bench, the artist and their materials and their tools.

Blacksmithing required a little more force, a little bigger scale.

From that point on, what he was creating just continued to grow and evolve.

And now it's nothing for him to create a 60 foot sculpture.

- So he's just someone who has over the last 50 years made an extraordinary body of work.

He's just someone whose work has always impressed me because he's gone through so many different chapters in his work.

His work has such an essence of exuberance and dynamism.

I know the impact that it's had in its public settings.

And that very much made me think this is an appropriate artist for this particular project.

The mediums of the Park Avenue are the central strips of land, which have flowers on them, which have trees at the holiday period which, have other kinds of vegetation on them but they also sprout two times a year.

Usually one person exhibitions of sculpture.

(soothing music) As a member of the Park Avenue sculpture committee, I suggested that Albert Paley would be a terrific artist to use, precisely because he's not only a good sculptor but he's a good public sculptor.

He's someone who works very, very powerfully in public spaces and touches the people who get to see it.

But in New York, there are no major pieces on regular view of Albert Paley's work.

- New York is New York and obviously it's a great opportunity for me to show.

- [Jay] But there was a problem, because of the nature of Paley's art and the costs associated with building his sculptures, he had no pieces standing idly around the workshop waiting to be exhibited.

- [Albert] The majority of my large-scale work is mainly commission work so it's already in place.

- [Jay] And one does not lift a towering work of art from its moorings in a public site and loan it to New York city for a temporary exhibit.

- So I had no work to show.

What I had proposed was to develop a new body of work specifically for this project.

- [Jay] Determined to create new work for display along new York's Park Avenue, Albert Paley had to decide how much work and what it would look like.

- [Announcer] If you purchased and even more space seats on this flight.

- [Jay] He and Jennifer Laemlein, director of Paley Studios met with the Park Avenue Sculpture Committee.

- We talked to them and their initial thoughts were, if we could even place four to six sculptures that would be a dynamic exhibition of your work.

- Usually with my work it's one individual piece that's put in a plaza or a certain cityscape.

What was interesting about the Park Avenue project is the amount of space that the sculptures took up.

It was approximately 15 blocks about three-quarters of a mile.

(slow music) - [Jennifer] Albert spent quite a bit of time on Park Avenue, walking back and forth, looking at the sites, looking at the corners, looking at the buildings.

- [Albert] In the development of a sculpture for a public arena, a lot of things go into its evaluation.

One is the appropriateness of the artwork to the site.

There is a sensibility to the community, to the site and to the symbolism of that.

- [Jay] As Paley examined the Park Avenue location, images began to take shape in his mind.

He came to a stunning conclusion.

- [Jennifer] He felt that it would take more than six sculptures to really bring art to the focus of Park Avenue.

- Based on the amount of time I had and the resources, I felt that I could do 13 pieces.

- 13 was probably way more than anybody was prepared for.

I was wondering if it could be done.

- [Jay] First, the project had to be approved by New York city's Department of Parks and Recreation.

- The Sculpture Committee for The Fund for Park Avenue review these projects and the proposals and suggestions of artists.

And we all, as a group, give our opinions for specific art.

Whether we think that they can hold their own in a space such as Park Avenue.

From there it gets turned over to the Parks Department for review, where we're reviewing it, not only aesthetically and that it's interesting in content.

But that we also have to make sure in terms of logistics, how does it impact the space for regular usage?

The way Park Avenue is set up it almost serves as kind of like a flip book.

It has this kind of rhythm to it.

Many people are actually traversing Park Avenue in cabs, so it's kind of a very quick shot of Park Avenue or down Park Avenue.

He's not seeing this as you're looking at this single sculpture that that can stand on its own if you're only walking by one intersection of Park Avenue.

It's really the whole entire experience of being able to see them in the distance sweeping up the hill, or I guess down the hill depending on which way you're going on Park Avenue.

- [Jay] There was one major concern.

- Is it gonna be too heavy for the site?

Because Park Avenue was built over a tunnel.

It's the tunnel that gets the trains in and out of the city.

Would this be too heavy?

If it's gonna be too heavy is there any way to counterbalance it or to divide that weight?

- [Jay] Paley easily adapted to the locations weight limits, scaling back from the towering and very heavy creations for which he's been known.

None of these pieces would exceed 25 feet in height, though that was small comfort for Jeff Jubenville, the foreman at Paley Studios who would oversee their construction.

- Scale doesn't mean anything to him.

It doesn't mean that much to me either.

The only thing it changes in my world is what piece of equipment is gonna pick it up?

The same amount of work and attention and detail goes into just one of these 20 foot sculptures, it might as well be a 100 feet.

As far as the planning, the logistics, the physicality of it and everything along the way, the engineering, the finishing, the shipping, all that stuff is the same.

It's a little bit smaller scale but all those problems are there.

In the case of Park Avenue, they have to be freestanding without being bolted down.

And if they're too light that's a problem.

But then the Park Avenue tunnel, too heavy is a problem.

So that's a delicate balance there.

- [Albert] Well, the largest piece that we're doing is a horizontal sculpture called the Progression.

That piece will be painted white.

The sculpture on 53rd street that I called Between The Shadows is the only polychrome piece.

You get the play of the material, quality of the steel, and then the coloration and also the play of the blue and the yellow.

On 54th street, there's a work called Reflection.

It's probably the most delicate, lyrical piece so that's one, all be in stainless steel.

On 57th street, two of the more dramatic sculptures are there, one is Jester, that has a sense of exuberance about it.

On the other side of the street, Encore, which is totally different.

There are these folded kind of banner shapes and stainless steel.

In 58th street, a work called Counterbalance, so these geometric forms that balance and interrelate one to the other.

Variance on 59th street is visually one of the more complex pieces.

Tilted Column stresses that whole aspect of gesture and balance.

You have this pylon that seems like it's broken and it's gonna fall over.

On 61st street, the two sculptures, Ambiguous Response and Cloaked Intention are gesturing one to the other.

They create kind of a ceremonial passage or archway.

Composed Presence on 64th street.

That's a relationship of geometric forms and organic forms, one to the other.

Languorous Repose deals with the relationship of organic and geometric form, almost kind of in a still life situation.

Envious Composure is probably the most organic piece.

They're stylized, kind of folded the banner shapes or ribbon like shapes that coalesce to the top.

- It's the most ambitious project that any sculpture in the last decade of this program has come up with.

- [Jay] Albert Paley's vision for Park Avenue meant that he and his team would have to produce a mountain of work in a molehill of time.

(calm music) In 2011, Albert Paley began to design the 13 sculptures that would lie in Park Avenue, in upper Manhattan.

Where do such ideas originate?

For Albert Paley, they come from somewhere within his experience, a vision forged with passion and driven by the need to express abstract concepts in palpable form.

- You have an intellectual base or a logical base and then you have an emotional base.

Some artists will develop a philosophy.

And now the philosophy design theory develops.

The other end of that spectrum is more of an emotional aspect.

With that you see something, you experienced something, it's very personal, it's very visceral, but it's non-literal.

And the basis of my design is kind of with that emotional base.

When is their aggression, when is there an intimacy?

When is there compassion?

Can these things be expressed through line, color, shape, contour?

- [Jay] Although each work is new and different, there are forms and shapes in his designs that to a well-trained eye, are clearly identifiable.

- The first time I ever saw his work was long before I moved to Rochester.

I saw it in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the Hunter Museum of Art.

I hadn't heard of him at that time, but those beautiful, wrought iron shapes of the fence around the museum stayed with me.

And after I began working at the museum and seeing things around town by him, I thought, oh, that's that same guy.

It really does stick with you visually once you've seen his work.

They're characterized by these very flowing ribbons of steel, almost.

And it's kind of mind boggling when you look at them to think how he can get such a rigid and unforgiving material as steel, to become so organic and so flowing, and so poetic and gestural.

- [Jay] For others, such appreciation is slower to come by.

This is the Rochester Institute of Technology where Paley once taught in the 1970s.

About 10 years ago, his success in the art world clearly established.

Many faculty members felt his work should be represented on the campus.

A committee petitioned, Dr. James Watters, Vice President for finance, to commission a sculpture from their former colleague.

But when Dr. Watters saw an example of Paley's work, he wasn't impressed.

- I can't tell you that I'm the best evaluator of art but it looked kind of rusty to me and he explained corten steel and how it age ages right and it looks chocolatey, and all these great features over time.

I say, "Well, that's all well and good, "but we're a high-tech institution.

"We need some shiny pieces on it.

"We wanna be high tech."

So he humored me and was very good spirited about it.

- In order to appreciate something, you have to understand it.

Aspects of the art arena, there was a lot of structural concerns, material usage and all of that.

There were several sessions that I dealt with Dr. Watters, explaining to him the dimensions of the artwork and how I felt it was appropriate for the site.

- And I sat there and I started to realize how big of a piece he was talking about.

- [Albert] It was the largest sculpture that I had done, and it's 80, 86 foot tall.

- And at that point I realized, maybe I should have put a little bit more parameter around it.

But nonetheless, the committee were wildly enthused.

They thought it was the great thing to do.

And so I just trusted them that, they're really the artists, they know.

I'll just make sure that the financial plan makes sense.

- [Jay] Paley's association with the Rochester Institute of Technology, began after he graduated from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.

- I had 15 job interviews and this was the most professional school.

So I came here in 1969.

And so I taught here full time.

But what the teaching allowed me to do is to be very much a purist in my art, because I didn't have to compromise sacrifice my work.

- [Jay] He was known as a jewelry maker who crafted beautiful and exotic pieces from gold and silver.

Elements far removed from the everyday items he collected while growing up on the streets of Philadelphia.

- So I collected cigar bands in the street and a matchbook covers.

And I would see on the scar bands, there would be pyramids, and Palm trees and Egyptian sphinxes and all of that.

To me, it was just kind of magic all over.

I was experiencing all of these things just by the (indistinct) that was laying around.

I used to collect pebbles and stones.

And I remember once I had a rusted piece of metal and I carved the hole in the stone and I used to wear the stone around my neck.

And I thought that was so cool that you could go through something that hard.

- [Jay] Metal and stone, materials that defined his early years as an artist.

- So I developed a personal vocabulary through metal.

Now, metal, there's a whole diversity of forms.

What's a cast form, what's a fabricated form, what's a forge form?

How can you do a piece of jewelry, that's light but also structurally viable.

And also the integration of non metallic things like carved ivory or amber, or stones.

I had defined myself as a goldsmith.

I was teaching, I was showing internationally, but this was over 40 years ago, it was a different time.

I didn't feel that goldsmithing or studio jewelry was being taken seriously.

Museums were not showing it, critical writing was not being done.

Even though I believed intensely what I was doing and it was fundamental, the core of myself being an artist that I felt it was just being marginalized.

I had to make a decision.

At that time, I remember I had 13, one man shows simultaneously in the United States and in Europe.

I brought all the jewelry back.

I put it in the safe and I sold all of my jewelry equipment.

And then I refused to talk about jewelry for 25 years.

This is another broach, it's worn on the shoulder.

Oh, I haven't seen it in years.

With the jewelry, it was the integration of the mechanics and the structure and the ornamental aspects.

And that same kind of dialogue is consistent with what I'm involved in with the large scale sculpture.

The structural integrity and the quality of metal and organic relationships of form.

- [Jay] In 2003, the sculpture known as Sentinel was installed on the Rochester Institute of Technology campus.

- For the first three months of every academic year, it's amazing to see how many students are out there, figuring out new angles and new shots, and new techniques to take images of that sculpture, that are just striking.

So, I've gained appreciation and also the appreciation of what our art students see and value.

With the patina of that metal aging and it's doing exactly what he says, as far as the dark chocolates coming through.

To me, it actually gets better with time, so I become a fan.

(calm music) - [Jay] The 13 sculptures that Paley will bring the Park Avenue, average between 15 and 20 feet in height.

Most of them weighing three to five tons each.

The largest one entitled Progression, will weigh almost eight tons distributed across its 40 foot length.

Total weight for the entire collection will come to about 100 tons, exhibited over a 15 block corridor.

Each of the designs begins with a drawing.

Progression had its origins in an earlier work.

- There was a certain print that I had done that I liked the interrelationship of forms, and I took copies of this print and I cut it up and started assembling it like in a collage.

So besides the graphic shapes and space, there's openings where you look through.

So it was a positive, negative relationship.

There's a sense of movement, there's a sense of evolution, a sense of gesture, but obviously the piece doesn't move.

You think about people walking down the Avenue with this horizontal passage, and in the sculpture does basically the same thing.

- [Jay] Paley and his wife Frances have been together for 39 years, an artist in her own right.

She still marvels at the fluid way he handles his work.

- The complexity of envisioning in your mind what a piece would even be, and then having to draw it out, having to make models for it, having to put it together, he holds all that in his mind.

So with the Park Avenue project now, those 13 pieces which I can't even keep straight, even when I'm looking at visuals for them, he has all that in his mind.

- [Jay] For a sculptor, a drawing expresses a dream lighter than air.

Paley's next step, a cardboard creation begins to suggest weight by showing it in three dimensions.

- On the table here, you're looking at a variety of models for the Park AV project in various stages.

Some of the early modeling is a rougher state, hand cut pieces.

Sometimes you'll find strange things in the models like junk mail, pink string, pieces of boxes, sticks he finds outside, whatever provides inspiration for the model and for the form.

- [Jay] Before work begins on the final pieces, there will be more models.

- From the cardboard models, we go into a metal model that works out all the structural engineering and the the joining of the steel.

And then each piece is labeled and marked.

And then when we start working on this, we have a reference point.

- [Jay] Even as the model clarifies what the finished piece may look like, it is still not ready for the welder's torch.

The sculpture will be made up of many parts, each part a work of art unto itself.

Paley returns to the two dimensional world.

Now working as a draftsman to redraw those individual pieces showing the steel company how to burn or cut each piece, so it can be bent, twisted and shaped to his vision.

- Unfortunately, because he draws it out by hand, we need to computerize it.

So we have to take it and scan it into CAD.

And then we have a mechanical drafter and she will sit down and trace in CAD and make sure every line translates based on what Albert wants.

- [Jay] These computerated designs or CAD will guide the steel company in burning the individual pieces for all 13 sculptures.

Even a small mistake in CAD can prove costly in both money and time.

- Which we've really tried to avoid cause stainless, what's it now, 3, $4 a pound.

And it's a lot of money.

(upbeat music) - Here's a typical order, going to Paley Studios.

It's gonna tell us what the thickness of the plate, what the parts are and which way to cut it.

Albert actually helps us direct what machine we're gonna use depending on what the final product's gonna be.

- [Jay] Jim Doran of Klein Steel has been handling Albert Paley sculptures for 25 years, but he's never faced a challenge as demanding as this one.

- We have 13 different sculptures now.

13 different parts that all the forms are different, all the plate thicknesses are different and the schedules are gonna keep changing.

What he's doing right now, he's checking out the parameters of the piece.

He's got a preheat going on the plate, he's ready to pierce.

Now he's got it, he's pierce the plate.

And he's gonna start producing that part.

- [Jay] There are no standard shapes or sizes in Paley's creations.

Although he may utilize similar themes, those flowing ribbons for example, he never repeats an element in exactly the same way.

Each piece is unique.

- When you're working on a sculpture, it's not like a building where you're putting up first floor, second floor, third floor.

The sculpture is being designed and built in Albert's vision.

And that vision could change.

There might be some subtle twists, something that he sees that he wants to stand out.

It might be another piece that he wants to change up.

It's the flexibility, it's understanding what he's looking for and making sure we stay within their directions.

- So they understands not only how to process Albert's material but there's also a certain element of quality control.

They understand when things aren't working right and they can stop the process and call us.

I can tell you dozens of times we've gotten calls from Klein Steel, and they've said, "Someone needs to come over and look at this "because it's not quite matching up to what we had in CAD."

So there's some disconnect between the CAD and the equipment which can happen.

- You can take a plate and cut it, maybe you can recut it.

Well, if you're trying to do 13 pieces on Park Avenue and hit a delivery date, you have no time for re-dos.

- [Jay] Paley's association with Klein Steel began long before Doran joined the company.

40 years ago, owner Joe Klein was working in his father's scrapyard when he first met the artist.

- I was teenager in the junk yard.

I'd worked there summers and he would come.

He couldn't afford new steel.

So he'd come and buy recycled steel.

And I used to help him load his car until the springs, the bumper would be dragging on the street.

- [Jay] In 1974, he installed a set of gates for the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

They immediately one critical acclaim.

As he earned new commissions, Albert Paley was no longer the jewelry maker who handled all aspects of a solitary business.

- If I would answer the phone, pay the cheques, do the artwork, meet with the clients and do all of that.

As the studio develop, my time became much more limited and I couldn't do everything.

- [Jay] Today, Albert Paley is an industry running a company that is quite remarkable in the way it meets his needs.

- For an artist to be able to make money on this sort of art in today's environment is tough.

But to be able to build an organization with really first rate people, you don't see someone with this disparate skill set that often.

It really sets Albert apart and has allowed him to keep doing larger and larger and more interesting pieces.

- [Jay] Jennifer Laemlein joined Paley's team four years ago.

She now works as director of Paley Studios.

- For 10 years prior to working for Albert, I was an engineer in the semiconductor industry.

So I decided I wanted a bit of a change from working in a clean room.

So I just started applying to various positions.

I did have some experience prior to graduating college in a metal shop.

So it seemed like kind of a natural fit, so I applied and Albert brought me on as a project manager.

- [Jay] Jeff Jubenville also came out of industry.

- I was working a structural steel job and got laid off.

So I came to Albert the next Monday and said, "I need full-time work, I got laid off."

He said, "Okay, I'll bring you on full-time."

So it was 1986.

- I've always admired passionate nuts.

And Albert was very direct.

He was focused to the point of zealotry, whatever.

That's what I like.

(soothing music) - Albert, since he was a child has had a work ethic.

And he never does anything even a 100%, it's 150%.

It's just the way it is, it's the way he does everything.

People have said he's driven.

There's probably some truth in it.

It's an amazing thing to see, it's very intense, it's very demanding.

Which means that anybody that works with him has to be able to meet that as well, meet that emotional context because it's intense.

- In the beginning of my time here, it was definitely a lot of pressure.

You get used to working with someone who's high energy and high expectation because everyone on the Paley Studios team is that way.

- My life is very fulfilling working with Albert.

I think that's why I stay with him because it's a lot of work.

I'm challenged, I'm questioned, I'm held accountable.

We're doing it because this is what we love to do.

This is what gives our life real meaning.

(soothing music) - [Jay] 13 sculptures begin moving through the pipeline, each one at a different stage in its development.

On the studio floor, Paley's team faces the most labor intensive, physically demanding and dangerous part of the process.

If the Park Avenue project is to be delivered by the deadline, Paley Studios must overcome limitations of space, money, and time.

- Park Avenue was a totally unfunded exhibition to us.

We have to find the funding, there's a large amount of financial risk that is built into this.

Can we at very minimum cover our costs and then in the end, can we become profitable so that we can do the next exhibition?

- Out of the 13, 7 of these sculptures have already been sold, which allows us the money to do that.

So if we sell one more, we'll be up to zero.

- [Jay] 8 of the 13 sculptures were sold, giving Paley Studios the necessary cash flow to do the job.

Knowing where pieces would eventually be placed, also determined which metals could be used in those sculptures.

- [Albert] Composed Presence on 64th street, that'll be painted red.

It's a very condensed kind of horizontal piece.

- So as we build it, if we know that it's gonna be painted a color, it's gonna be in Florida, probably the worst thing that could happen to it.

So that being said, we made it out of stainless steel which is a lot more expensive.

But you don't want it to start rusting which in Florida would take about three days.

Stainless is miserable.

When it's cold and you're purely fabricating it, you can understand what it's gonna do, once you get it hot, it misbehaves.

(upbeat music) - So we have four sculptures right now in finishing.

We are just starting to put two new sculptures on the floor and Progression will follow in a week or so.

- Albert has a lot going on besides patterning upstairs, we're doing patterning down here and it's just a question of time.

From the design elements that are being still made in cardboard to the pattering that goes through CAD upstairs, to when they come in the door finished from Klein where we can start bending them.

And then we take these parts and we put them right up on the pieces as they fit.

Right now that the bottleneck is Albert.

- Well, it doesn't have to be.

'Cause I've seen times where people are grinding way excessively when it's gonna be rusted and they don't have to be.

And then I've seen it go the other way, where they didn't grind enough because they didn't really know it was gonna be powder-coated.

If it's a powder coating or painting.

- What's happening is that it's a sliding scale.

One thing isn't applicable to something else.

- Exactly.

- And they're all judgment calls.

Obviously, nobody wants to do a bad job or whatever.

So it's a judgment call.

- Constantly trying to make those judgment calls when I see him but I don't see everyone either.

- [Jay] Paley knows he's pushing his team but he also trust them to get the job done right.

- I've spent much of my high school and college years hauling zoo animals on brigs all over the country, elephants, the giraffes and rhinos.

And that was unique, that was exciting.

There were people excited to see you, and you just worked to do a good job and it was appreciated.

And not that freight wasn't, but part of my business plan was wanting to approach the Paley Studio and ask, how do you move your sculptures?

They've got to go on a truck, somehow.

And that's kind of how this came together.

When I look at these sculptures, they're one of a kind pieces.

I can't go back and grab another one if something goes wrong and I pray to God that nothing does go wrong, but you take your time and you're careful and you're cautious and just do a good job.

When typically people think of art, I don't think this is what they think of.

They think of a canvas and that's what I tend to think of.

There's so many facet of art, but here I am and have three pieces on the trailer today that are weighing close to 10,000 pounds.

We're just driving along here and I see a gentleman walking on the side of the road, glances over as I drive by, but the head turns 180 degrees, he turns around.

That's what I love about this.

You get people doing a double-take and wondering, hey, what's that?

- So there's quite a bit more to do.

We're doing okay but we're also working every single day.

So splitting the crews on the weekends, half crew on Saturday, half crew on Sunday.

So at least everybody gets a day off.

- [Jay] 45 days remain until the installation on Park Avenue.

Workers are in constant motion as they swarm around heavy metal slabs working over, under and sometimes inside the sculptures.

- We're right in the middle of it, as the workers, were right here in the middle of it.

We have a hard time seeing the end goal sometimes because we're right there, welding or grinding, or moving the pieces around all day.

- [Jay] With the long hours and mounting pressure to meet a punishing deadline.

They have to be ever alert to the inherent risks of their profession.

(indistinct) - We were working on Progression yesterday and we have feet that hold the main structure off the base plate, and it's like a fourth inch up.

I was cutting off one of the feet and the cutoff wheel just got stuck.

And when it freed up, it kind of just jumped back and hit the top of my finger here and cut down through almost through the tendon, just to the tendon.

Which was really lucky 'cause I didn't have to have surgery or anything like that.

- When you see a piece and it's finished, here's beautiful piece, whatever it is and it's lovely and it's calm and it's just gorgeous.

That's not how it's made.

It's made in an environment from hell.

Just the noise and the complexity of so many people moving around.

So it isn't a quiet, private, contemplative environment that he creates of.

(slow music) - Things are moving along.

The last five pieces are in fabrication.

54th street is basically done.

This ones actually fairly close.

Progression, there's some small plates to go in and then this will be wrapped up.

- We have four sculptures that have to be completed in three weeks.

So this is the final resolution.

- What's today, the 23rd.

It's tight, it's very, very tight.

(upbeat rock music) - For the paint for 59th, they painted half of it today.

They know we're gonna run out and if we wait and get it from Kansas City, it's five days.

I haven't got five days.

You just get things going good and something trips and you got to solve a new problem.

Constantly (laughs) never ending.

(upbeat music) Plan is to get the last two pieces out, 67th street, and 59th, Variance, out to the sand blasters to be painted.

Those are the last two, Progression left last Friday.

- We will ship the sculptures from Paley Studios.

They need to arrive to our installers yard by June 1st.

That will give them two weeks to prepare their rigging equipment.

- So as the piece gets done, here we protected everything to the manufacturer, great.

Now it's got to leave here and it's not under our thumb.

It's not under our control.

Your baby's left, (laughs) yeah it's scary.

- [Jay] More than two years after being invited to exhibit his work in New York City, Paley's team arrives at Park Avenue.

They have pushed themselves to the limit constructing 13 sculptures the artist envisioned for the site.

Now they will work through the night to install them.

- It's nice to see.

- That was a fun one to work on.

- There are large flatbed trucks, there are cranes, there are multiple people working on a very small site in order to have the least impact possible on the site, and the way that the traffic patterns are.

It happens overnight so that there's just not much traffic to contend with.

And we're not in interfering with people trying to get to work.

- [Jay] Although the team has two nights to complete the job, the work is expensive.

Paley and Laemlein hope it doesn't take that long.

- For the installation, we are hoping to be able to complete the install in one evening.

It does reduce our overall cost for the installation.

Less crane cost, less crew cost.

- We only have from 10 pm Friday night to 6 am Saturday morning.

Do I see installation happening all 13 in that window?

I'd like to say yes, but I'm too much of a realist to say, yes.

It's not that easy.

- If you think about even doing that in two nights, it's crazy.

Even if you think about you have a week to do it, it's crazy.

So one night is insane.

Multiple cranes, different locations, a matter of hours to put those things in, it's wild, really.

- We will be running two crews.

So one crew will start at 52nd street, which is Progression.

The other crews will start at 59th street, which is Variance.

Both crews will run North simultaneously to finish by 6 am.

- Front and back or?

- No, front.

- [Man] That's a right, nothing?

- [Albert] Stop, just center it.

- [Man] It can be much easier now.

- [Albert] No, I'll tell you, I'm trying to make it easy for you.

But it has to be centered in this panel here.

Yeah, we're good.

- Okay.

- My understanding is the next one.

- It's just that next corner.

- Past the intersection, okay.

- 53rd, mm-hh.

- [Jay] The lights throw deep shadows under the sculptures, making some work difficult to see while increasing the risk of injury.

Paley discovers a bolt that secures the sculpture to its base, cannot be removed.

- [Albert] What's problem, Tyler?

- [Tyler] We're having a hard time getting the bolt down.

- [Man] You can't put a socket on it 'cause it hits the angle of the two.

It's got to go another four inches.

- We have a problem here.

- What's that?

- We can't get the bolt out.

Okay, what are we gonna do with this?

- [Tyler] This wrench is wedged up against the pin, Albert.

- [Man] Can you do it by hand?

- [Albert] Yeah, I got it now by the little wrench.

- [Man] Try with your hand on it, we'll hold it.

(metal clanging) - [Albert] You think it's free now?

- [Tyler] I know it's pretty, there it goes.

- [Albert] Here we go.

Good man.

(Albert groaning) - [Jay] As Paley walks along the Park Avenue, medium, he suffers an injury.

- It just was something that was in the medium, in the dark and he stepped on it and snapped a tendon.

The pain was unbelievable.

(slow music) He didn't know what he did at the time, he just knew it was bad and he couldn't really leave at that point.

He really had to finish what he was doing.

- Ah, must have pulled it, a tendon.

- Must have pulled something, okay.

- Let's get this done.

- All right, well I just.

- No, there's no option.

I figured that would be the answer.

- [Jay] Jeff Jubenville delivers fateful news.

- So how are things going?

- Well, they're finishing the second piece.

I think you guys are a little bit ahead of us.

- One for tonight.

We have two more to do down at the habour tomorrow, or tonight.

- [Jay] It will require a second night to complete the work but the pieces in place are already generating excitement.

- I think that they're nice.

I think it's a great marriage between the steel industrial, local Park Avenue.

So it's kind of like a nice marriage.

- I like the diamond part.

- It leaves a lot to the imagination and people can interpret it whichever way they like.

And with a city as diverse as New York it's perfect for that.

- You can be working on it here, it may not, it's some nice piece I enjoyed making it, it looks nice.

This, that and the other thing.

But until you see it on site and then suddenly like, boom, that's why he designed it this way.

This fits this space just right.

- They'll never have to think back and go, oh gee, if only we had thought of this or if only we had done that, if only we'd put out more effort on this, worked harder on that, if only.

It was done as fully and as completely in every step as could be done.

And that's a good feeling.

So whatever comes from it, it's a huge success.

(happy music) - [Jay] on Saturday night, the crew gathers one final time.

The bulk of the work is behind them now and there is a feeling of celebration as the night begins.

Even the artist finally free from the pressure that has dogged him for months, must admit that his dream has become real.

- [Photographer] Come on Albert, dig deep, Albert, beautiful smiles.

One, two.

(soothing music) - This has been two and a half years of constant work that is culminated in this exhibition.

The artwork is just what I experience, that's what I experience.

A person comes up, they might not know anything about the artwork but they look at something and it's like, what is this?

What does this mean, how do I relate to it?

Do I like it or don't I like it> All of a sudden they're presented with a series of questions that they never thought they'd ever be presented with.

And is this a wave, is this a flower, is this a cloud?

Is this aggressive, is this comforting?

What is all of this?

The artwork keeps on asking the same questions that we all ask ourselves, reflects it in a different way.

- [Man] The challenge was to create a work that will have the impact and hopefully create a sense of memory and a sense of place.

♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Oh ee-ooh ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ (upbeat guitar music) - [Narrator] Production funding for this program is provided in part by the Elaine P. & Richard U. Wilson Foundation, the Ames Amzalak Memorial Trust, and by viewers like you.

(slow music) (calm music)