I can imagine that when a freshly employed registrar sees an estimate by a professional art handling agent for the first time, he or she is just heavily shocked. Why is it so crazy expensive? The agent surely wants to rip us off! It just can't be! In many cases a professional fine art transport with all its extras is simply unnecessary and far too expensive indeed. Here an illustrative, slightly exaggerated example: A small, inexpensive framed drawing or sculpture will be travelling through a city almost equally safe wrapped in a towel and carried in a rucksack on a bike courier's back, as it would on board of an air-conditioned, alarm-secured fine art truck with an extra spring system and two trained art handlers as drivers.
On the other hand, the transported volume affects often only the time of handling (pick-up, loading / unloading, warehouse handling) whereas the costs of the tranport itself, like leasing rates (or usage and insurance) of such a specially equipped truck,
two art handlers per hour or petrol consumption stay the same, irrespective of the transported volume.
Consequently, it is crucial to recognise what kind of transport and packing is actually needed: A consolidated city ride and a bubble foil wrapping? A dedicated fine art transport and a T-frame? Or maybe a shipping via airfreight, with a courier assistance, supervision at the airport and a climate controlled crate?
As you suppose, the price for the transport of one and the same art work may span from several tens up to several thousands EUR, depending on how precious it is to its owner. It is good to remember that expensive services of the high-ranking art forwarding agents are meant for the most fragile and valuable art works and might just not be necessary in all cases.
And here an example of how you definitely shouldn't transport your art works - spotted accidently on a bus today :)
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| experimental art handling :) |
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