[1][2][3] From May 2010 to February 2011, the sculpture was installed at the Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza in San Francisco's Civic Center, before moving to Hong Kong later that year from May to July.
The Asian Art Museum is housed in the former main branch building of the city's public library, adjacent to Civic Center Plaza, where the sculpture was eventually installed.
[8] The artist and Pace Gallery (his New York representative) agreed to loan the piece at no charge;[9] the first official announcements were made in mid-January 2010, under the name Three-Headed, Six-Armed Buddha.
[9] Atthowe Fine Art Services (based in Oakland) designed the transportation[13] and installed the piece, carefully choosing the site so the statue was supported sufficiently, since Civic Center Plaza lies atop an underground parking garage and exhibition hall.
Early public impressions of the sculpture were favorable,[15] although staff writers for the San Francisco Examiner called it "striking, bizarre and fairly overwhelming.
[4][16] It was fenced off for three weeks in June 2010 after it had attracted graffiti declaring "Jesus is the one", in anticipation that future crowds and parade-goers might also damage the statue.
[17] Although at least one attempt was made to extend the loan,[12] the temporary installation and sculpture were dismantled on February 15, 2011, after its one-year lease from the Chinese government expired.
[22] The sculpture was acquired by 2012[23] for the permanent collection of the Parkview Green [zh] art and retail campus in Beijing;[24] it has since been displayed at the outdoor garden there, with a temporary loan from July 8 to October 13, 2013, to Forte di Belvedere in Florence, Italy, as part of Zhang's Soul and Matter exhibition.
[27] The faces were created by adding clay over a welded steel armature; the clay-and-steel buck was used as a form to shape the hammered copper skin.