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.
Given what happened at the Luvre last year, what’s the security situation like in the UK? Do people there take security seriously? Has anything crazy ever happened to you, or have you seen anyone doing something reckless?
I'm not sure what the Louvre's security setup is, but I feel like it must be surprisingly bad (at least at that moment in time), especially considering the stuff they have stored there. I don't want to curse things by speaking too soon, but I think generally the security in most of the places I've worked is pretty good actually. You certainly know when there's a "big name" work being brought on site, and even low-value stuff is still dealing with numerous locked doors, alarms and cameras. The UK is quite big on security cameras everywhere anyway, but there's normally extra ones installed when there's big-name works on - as well as numerous tamper alarms, which are generally linked directly to some sort of police alert system - and quite often certain rooms or entrances to the gallery lock down with big metal shutters. I think one of the recent Louvre ones involves people climbing through a window. Windows tend to be boarded up in most galleries here - perhaps more for the sake of control of light and UV in the space than security, but I guess it does that too.
Most gallery security tends towards slowing people down - it can all be bypassed, but really it's just slowing it down for long enough that it would be noticed and potentially intercepted and stopped. For example, using covered security fixings on a work doesn't stop things outright, but it does mean extra kit and time is needed - by which point, the alarms have gone off and the police are on their way (and you've been recorded from every possible angle by cameras).
Tiny local galleries or artist-run spaces is a different matter - but generally speaking there's nothing of high enough value to interest "proper organised theft" and the common opportunistic theft in the area would much rather nick an easily resellable mobile phone or laptop, as opposed to trying to sell a stolen painting at the local pub, takeaway or "cash converters" type shop. I do remember a few minor thefts or damages, but nothing major, certainly. If you were so minded, in a physical sense, you could probably just walk in and lift something off a wall, as in it may just be hung on a screw or nail - though I imagine you'd definitely be seen doing it.
I know one of the galleries I work at regularly had some sort of armed robbery 20 or 30 years in the past, but that was a long time before I worked there - so I'm not sure if these sort of incidents are very rare over here, or I've been extremely lucky. I'd think the vans and the people transporting the stuff are probably more at risk than the galleries and staff.