If for any reason you need to pack away a work from your art collection, be aware that certain precautions are necessary to prevent the piece from suffering damage – especially if you intend to keep it in storage for a long period. In this post, we give some tips on precautions when packing artworks.
The first impulse of anyone facing this need is to wrap the whole piece in bubble wrap – but this is not good practice. Indiscriminate use of plastic can trap moisture against the work, creating risks such as the spread of mould, which we have already discussed in another post.
Transport and storage over longer periods ideally require the construction of bespoke crates for each work – this is museum-standard packing, which keeps the piece stable and minimises the risk of damage during movement. But storage for short periods can also be resolved with what is known as soft packing, made with layers of cardboard, glassine paper and acrylic wadding.
When it comes to storing them, pieces should not rest directly on the floor. Canvases should be kept upright and should not lean against one another. Ideally, the whole process should be supervised by specialists in order to ensure that art handling does not harm the integrity of the works and, consequently, their value.
Even for short periods of time, Clé Reserva Contemporânea has storage solutions offering quality, security and complete specialisation in artworks, drawing on logistics, conservation and cataloguing partners to offer clients complete solutions – whether to store just one piece for a short period of time or an entire collection in a private room.
Take a look at our storage solutions and talk to a specialist.
See also the logistics solutions of our partner ArtQuality, which has its own joinery workshop for building bespoke crates.
