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.
Oh fuck so there’s no escaping it anywhere huh?
No, but I definitely see it less frequently doing this, compared to work I did previously - though with such things it’s very hard to work out if it’s the change in the work, the change in society over time, the change in where I live now, or the change in me personally, due to age and experience.
In the larger scale of things, I love the work I’m doing and see very little of the above (other than the lack of materials, which is constant), so feel pretty lucky to be honest.
Well I’m happy you’ve got a job you enjoy, it’s refreshing to hear every now and again that someone in this life has that pleasure