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November 22nd, 2008
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Art in transit

The finer details behind moving masterpieces from one country to another

By Brooke Edge
For The Prague Post
October 3rd, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Ján Mančuška's Žebřík (Liberated Household Ladder)
Daniel Pitín's Na ulici (On the Street)
Rachel Harrison's Checking the Tires, Not To Mention the Marble Nude
2007 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Ar
Andy Warhol's Self-Portrait was on display at Musuem Kampa last month.
How do you keep your valuables safe? Perhaps an alarm system in your flat? Travel insurance when you fly with jewelry, or splurging on priority mail when sending a gift?
What would you do if you were responsible for a Warhol?
Between large national museums and small-town galleries, art travels great lengths. From cargo holds on planes to warehouses on land, a lot of money, time and paperwork go into the task — and the duty — of sharing important pieces of inspiration with individuals around the globe.
These days, you don’t have to make a pilgrimage to Paris to see  pieces by Leonardo da Vinci or Claude Monet. Such masterpieces tour constantly. And a new generation of artists is also jumping on the bandwagon. Through the buzz of the Internet and overnight shipping, the hottest new painters in, say, Asia can more easily make their European debut.
Museums and galleries are making it their mission to provide audiences with the best art out there, despite the risks and jitters that come with transporting works of cultural importance.
As Ondřej Stupal, project manager of the Smíchov gallery Futura, sees it: “We borrow, therefore we have to organize the transport [of art] often.”
Put another way, “You are responsible for things that are extremely expensive — [things that] might be or already are part of the cultural memory of mankind, [which] are unique and cannot be renewed,” Stupal adds. Putting a dent or tear into something like this while in transit is not an option.
The folks over at Museum Kampa, which is dedicated to the great works of the 20th century, couldn’t agree more. This year alone, the museum featured three international shows, most recently an exhibition of 20 pieces by Andy Warhol, which closed last month.
Many of these shows can take years to coordinate, especially when it comes to the logistics of transporting the art. Sandra Průša, an assistant curator at Kampa, for instance, says she spent three months arranging everything that went into getting the Warhol pieces to and from her small Prague museum. Nineteen of the Warhols were lent to Kampa from the Andy Warhol museum in the United States and one came from Hungary. According to Průša, the paintings were transported by plane in air-conditioned crates, a standard practice for keeping art healthy in transit.
These specially designed crates, Průša explains, are generally brought to a museum or gallery a full 24 hours before the art is packed in order to acclimate to the environment where the paintings are kept. The work is then usually packed the day before it is shipped. The temperature inside the transport van, Průša notes, is maintained at a controlled temperature and will likely come equipped with a refrigeration unit.  
The whole process is a carefully constructed series of events closely monitored by a number of different people responsible for making sure the artwork arrives at its destination unscathed.   
“We use companies specialized in transporting the art … who’ve got experience with this kind of material,” Stupal says. Still, such shipments can be risky. “Even when properly packed, [sculptures] may be more sensitive for transporting — vibration, shaking, so on,” Stupal says.
René Rohan, the managing director of Arttransport, a Prague-based company that specializes in moving contemporary masterpieces, says the actual transportation of such work is “not that complicated.” What is complicated, however, is the initial planning stage: All the paperwork, logistics and packaging can take weeks, Rohan says, adding that the special, air-conditioned crates the art is moved in can require four days to construct.   
“It varies,” Rohan says, “depending on how big the exhibition is, what type of exhibition it is,” among other things.
The price of such service also varies. While Rohan doesn’t provide any numbers, he does explain that each move is different. Some may require a small car for transport while others may need a truck. Packaging — simple paper-plastic or air-conditioned crates — is also another factor in the price, according to Rohan.   
On rare occasions, art transportation may include a night in an air-tight storage facility. For that purpose, the local market in state-of-the-art warehouse space has recently seen improvements, says Jakub Pelikán, a marketing officer for ProLogis, an international storage company.  
Warehouses built by ProLogis are built for “optimal use,” Pelikán explains. Individual clients can add on elements for special storage needs though, including extra insulation and air-conditioning needed for valuable materials. The company also provides 24-hour security.
But no matter how experienced a company may be with transporting or storing art, insurance is, of course, another integral part of the process.
Kampa, Průša says, obtains “nail to nail” insurance for all the pieces it borrows, covering each work from the moment it leaves the wall of its home gallery or museum until the moment it’s returned.
Kampa also often finds itself on the lending end of the transaction, as its works — notably an extensive collection by Czech artist František Kupka — are in great demand worldwide. Průša says Kampa does turn down requests to borrow works sometimes, as requesting exhibitions must be fully vetted and up to Kampa standards.
For international exhibitions, accompanying paperwork takes far longer than the physical transport. Just signing off on the Warhols, for example, took two days, Průša says.
On top of insurance, extensive security often comes with the transport of art. The Warhols didn’t need armed guards watching the collection in transit, as would happen with a Leonardo da Vinci peice, for example. But, Průša says, “there should really always be a courier with artwork,” to check it over and sign off on both ends of the trip with a “condition report.”
By courier, Průša doesn’t mean a bike messenger. These couriers are usually certified registrars or curators.
But even for pros who have overseen dozens of art shipments, both Průša and Stupal say the nerves never quite leave.
“It’s nerve-wracking,” Průša admits. When an art shipment is opened, “there’s always a moment when everybody’s very quiet.”
While art lending may seem like a precarious balancing act sometimes, what it all boils down to is manners and common sense. “If you borrow something,” Stupal says, “you simply do not want to give it back broken.”
— Naďa Černá contributed to this report

Brooke Edge can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


Other articles in Transport (3/10/2007):

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