I am a UK-based self-employed Art Technician, who travels around my local region to different galleries and museums to install art exhibitions.

Sometimes I handle famous and expensive artworks or priceless artifacts, but most of the time it’s probably artworks you’ve not heard of. This includes 2D work like paintings, 3D work like sculptures, video projections, screens, sound systems, computers, and room-filling installations. Sometimes we work directly with living artists to help produce their work.

Happy to talk about technical stuff i.e. how artworks are transported, packed, fixed to the wall, what sort of fittings are used, how an exhibition is spaced out, hung, arranged etc; or to talk about working in galleries, or any questions from artists about how to prepare works for exhibition etc

I’m also a practicing artist, and historically both a filmmaker and gallery curator - so happy to answer things relating to that sort of thing too.

Because it’s a pretty niche job I may have to keep some details vague for privacy etc.

I’m doing a public talk fairly soon on “what I do”, and I need to know what sort of things people are potentially interested in, so I can focus more on those in the talk - so any relevant questions would be really helpful to me, thank you.

  • manualoverride@lemmy.world
    10·
    16 days ago

    I’ve heard some horror stories about some fine art logistics from people I know in the trade…. Their stories always ended with leaving it at the house/gallery for someone else to sort it out, what has been the most badly delivered item you’ve had to try and install?

    • Art_Technician@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      14·
      16 days ago

      You get a lot of deliveries on lorries (trucks) with a tail lift which is the wrong size for the loading bay of the gallery… so out they go, round the front, drop the work off on the floor in the middle of the city centre, leaving you to load it onto a little set of trolley wheels and drag it through the city centre and through the front door :)

      There’s also works which are to be installed upstairs, but are too big to fit in the lift (elevator). Sometimes the only option is to manhandle something up the staircase with ten people lifting it. We’ve also had “it will fit in the lift, if we take it out of its crate and hold it diagonally”.