Most of the world's renowned museums display only a small portion of their collections. On average, between 80% and 90% of items are kept in fine art storage – spaces away from the public gaze, where an essential part of these institutions' activity takes place.
Museums have the triple function of researching, safeguarding and communicating their collections. Exhibitions, the public face of this activity, are one of the most important forms of communication with visitors. Because they are visible, publicised – and today, instagrammable – they end up being confused with the institutions themselves.
But it is in fine art storage that the other two ends of the tripod take place – the work of research and safeguarding, which involves the cleaning, conservation, restoration, documentation and, in some cases, the digitisation of collections.
In this post, we explain how fine art storage works.
What is inside fine art storage?
Good quality stores are extremely organised places and have specific furniture for holding the objects in the collection. In art museums, sliding painting racks are common – a kind of cabinet made of steel and wire mesh on a sliding system, like a large vertical chest of drawers, which allows canvases and paintings to be kept hanging.
Plan chests are also used, drawer units more like the traditional ones, but for keeping large format papers such as prints, drawings and, as the name says, maps and charts. Plan chests can be adapted to hold other types of object, such as textiles. Large and small sculptures, on the other hand, may require the construction of bespoke crates or containers.
Given the large volume of items kept in store – in some cases, tens of thousands – systematising the information is essential. Whether in paper files or in digital format, every fine art store keeps the exact location of each artwork documented, with codes that identify the furniture and the object.
This avoids one of the great nightmares of a large collection: dissociation, the technical term that refers to the loss of the objects or of the information related to them.
Why do museums have far more artworks than they can display?
Let us go back to the beginning of this post: displaying is only one of a museum's functions. Institutions also count the preservation and research of collections among their basic missions, activities that largely take place in fine art storage. For this reason, as well as reinforced security – including against fire – these spaces also have controlled environmental conditions and strict cleaning and pest prevention routines.
Moreover, it is mainly from their fine art storage that museums are able to offer the public temporary exhibitions that open up new relationships with and new ways of looking at the collection, also drawing on loans from other institutions.
Where is fine art storage located?
When the museum has room on its own premises, the fine art store occupies one or several rooms in areas with no public access. These are generally places with reinforced security, to which not even all the museum's staff have access. In fact, only those who really need to be there go into the store – generally conservators, curators and documentation specialists.
Some institutions keep adjoining rooms where visiting specialists are received so that they can have access to artworks or documents, which are taken out of the store by the museum team and carried there for as long as the work lasts. Afterwards they return to the store, without the outsider having had to enter the room itself.
As collections grow, space becomes scarce, and museums end up resorting to off-site premises or warehouses to expand their fine art storage.
Clé and Brazilian museums
As the only private fine art storage facility in Brazil with museum standards of security, environmental control and confidentiality, Clé Reserva Contemporânea counts among its clients some of the most important Brazilian museums, which keep private spaces there to store part of their collections. Some institutions also use the double ceiling height room for storing large scale sculptures. Only authorised personnel may enter each space, which also has the infrastructure to receive teams of conservators and documentation specialists for cleaning and cataloguing work.
Technology at the service of every client
Every Clé Reserva Contemporânea client enjoys the same standard of quality made available to museums. There are 4,500 square metres of storage area, 100% climate controlled and with security and fire prevention systems 24×7. Just like museums, private collectors can also rent a private room from 25 m² or, if they prefer, keep their artworks in a shared area managed by Clé.
Talk to our specialists to find out more about the solutions available.
