Seattle Art Museum

About this audio guide

This guide to Seattle Art Museum turns on September 28, 1991, when riggers hoisting the forty-eight-foot Hammering Man sculpture watched its strap snap, dropping tons of steel and aluminum just before a rooftop photographer's camera. It follows the sculpture's yearlong repair trip to a Connecticut foundry, its return in 1992 as a local folk hero, and the night a group chained a steel ball to its ankle in protest. Stand and watch the arm complete its four beats a minute, a rhythm that has run since before you likely noticed Seattle at all.