Sarah Abdeen
Major events and exhibitions in the world of art require the transfer of countless works of art, the transfer of works of art is a huge logistics industry, and spring is considered the season of important artistic events, both classical and contemporary works or compositions.
Visitors all over the world enjoy art galleries without thinking about how all this great cultural production will reach their audiences. These services remain almost unknown and invisible even to art experts, despite the expansion of the art world and the rising number of museums and art galleries in the world.
How do you transfer artwork to different destinations?
The shipment of works of art requires the services of specialized companies. The most important of these companies are Crown Fine Art, Momart in the UK, Hasenkamp in Germany, Baltrans in Hong Kong, Dietl in the United States.
These companies provide safe ways to access artworks to their destinations, because these can be very fragile, large or sensitive, and many opportunities for error. There are hundreds of tales of works of art damaged during transport, either by breakage or even theft. Therefore, specialized companies use well-insulated boxes, specially designed for temperature control, equipped with tilt or shock sensors, as well as tracking devices if the works are antique or high-value.
"No piece of art should be moved once it is inside its box, fully installed, or placed in a very soft, hand-made foam," says Herman Kaufman, owner of the Austrian company Otrans, which runs a fleet of air cargo across Western Europe. By professional workers. "
Kaufmann mentions the works of American sculptor Richard Serra, adding that they are multi-toned, requiring flat trucks, special cranes and teams of construction experts to install in public places and museums.
There are a lot of works that are less weight, but they represent a different difficulty, such as the conceptual work of the Spanish artist Santiago Sierra. Which is about 40 cubic meters of soil of the peninsula of Iberia, where the work needed to multi-trucks, in addition to a lot of devices that maintain the soil biologically so as not to be affected during the transfer process.
Costs of the transfer of works of art
Professional transport companies demand high prices, especially in air cargo, since the cost of shipping a flat plate from one European capital to another is approximately 500 euros at a time, while charging one statue between Europe and Asia is estimated at around 3000 euros back and forth without This includes the cost of insurance usually incurred by the fair or the museum. Shipping may be less expensive, but it takes longer time.
Other methods of transportation
Because of the high cost of art transfer companies, not all artists can afford that cost. If the artist is not famous or the stars of art, the value of shipping may become greater than the value of the work itself, so there must be alternatives, and the simplest and most frequently traded alternatives is the transfer of art in the private cars of their owners, or the transfer of works of art through shipping companies Or deconstructing the artwork from its own frames, wrapping it and moving it wrapped and then re-fitting the work in its frames after the work reaches its final destination.
Some technical media do not need physical shipping like motor performers who do not need more than a plane ticket and a hotel room. Some conceptual artists or video artists save their works on CDs or transfer them via websites to transfer files.
The most popular art tours
The modern era began in the field of the transfer of works of art in the early sixties of the last century by large jet aircraft able to transport business long distances directly and quickly. Thanks to the King Tutankhamun treasures collection in Cairo, which first arrived in the United States in 1961 and spent most of the next 20 years traveling between the museums of Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany, bringing unprecedented numbers of visitors.
The pieces of King Tutankhamun were transported in private wooden boxes, fortified and distributed among three aircraft with a security of about £ 9 million, upon arrival in London in 1972.
Round the Mona Lisa
Art historians report that the coordinators at the Louvre Museum were shocked to learn that Jackie Kennedy convinced French Culture Minister André Malraux to approve the Mona Lisa in the United States in 1963, many of whom threatened to resign, and even the director of the National Museum of Art in Washington was not willing to Of the risks that may occur to the board.
In the end its own box is designed to pop up in case of ship sinking. When the painting arrived at the port of New York accompanied by the US Coast Guard. Then the fund was led from New York to Washington by a secure convoy stopping traffic completely until the painting box safely reached the museum store.