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.
What's the most unrealistic or goofiest thing a client has asked for?
There's a huge amount of scale, weight and practical things like "can we hang this [heavy thing] from the [not strong enough]?"
A favourite I remember was:
"Is there any way we can screw the paintings to the window?"
"I'm assuming you mean the frame?"
"No, are there screws that will go into the glass?"
Did you end up using adhesive or suction cups or something?
We offered the options of:
a) build a support frame with a single horizontal centre baton, painted the same colour as the window frame, then mount the works to that
b) build a frame top and bottom of the window, and suspend the works on either metal wire or transparent plastic "fishing line", depending on weight
c) do actually drill holes through the glass (no guarantee it won't shatter) then put bolts through, then hire a massive scaffold and go up the outside to fix the bolts in.
d) as above, but take the window out and replace with perspex
e) install the works on the blank gallery wall over there, in the normal manner
We explained the extra materials and time needed, and they went with installing it on the wall in the normal way :)