Art Handling, Transport and Storage

This course offers specially designed training on the handling, storage and transportation of cultural heritage focusing on modern and contemporary artworks (paintings, sculptures and installation works).

Artworks have to be moved, packed, transported, stored and presented properly to guarantee their preservation and safety. Curators, gallery staff, art handlers and technicians are indirect and frequent contact with artworks and therefore need to know the essentials of proper care, maintenance and preservation. Additionally, in an ever-expanding global art world this knowledge is crucial as the loan and transportation of works of art have increased significantly in recent years

This course is useful for anyone in contact with artworks and will provide basic guidelines for handling, packaging, transport and storage of works of art. In addition, the lecturer will enrich these guidelines, methods and techniques through case studies and day-to-day examples.

• general introduction into handling artworks: how to touch, move and place objects
• what not to do – common mistakes in art handling
• handling equipment and its application

Week 3. Packing (How to pack and crate an artwork)

• different crates used for transport (e.g. transportation frames, climate buffered crates) and their applications
• overview on materials used for soft packings like Tyvek, bubblewrap, Polyethylene foil or acid-free cardboard
• basic guide to safeguard glazed and framed paintings and drawings/works on paper

Week 4. Transport

• basics about how to transport artworks
• handling equipment: how to make best use of pallet jacks,forklifts and other devices to move heavy duty artworks
• requirements for short, in-house as well as long distance transports
• introduction on how to communicate with a transport company

Week 5. Storage

• general requirements on storage organisation
• materials and tools for storage use
• monitoring, pest management, housekeeping
• summary of good practices for daily work