“The public walks into the gallery and just sees everything installed. What the art-handling team do is to make the magic happen behind the scenes. And it’s not a role that is often seen in the outside world,” says Katie Godwin, Tate’s art-handling manager.
Godwin works across Tate Britain and Tate Modern, along with Tate Stores, the operations hub where many artworks are held and managed when not on display. The varied role of the art-handling manager includes project and activity management and balancing the competing demands of Tate’s programme of displays, exhibitions and loans. Working with 30 permanent art-handling technicians, the team are responsible for the logistical and practical elements of managing the entire collection, which involves storage, packing, transit and installation. “If it’s going on a wall, in a gallery or out on loan, it will have passed through our hands,” she says. This includes anything from paintings and sculptures, to 16mm films and even installations built from couscous.
Tate’s collection is vast, currently numbering around 77,000 artworks. Of the UK museums, it also has one of the biggest loan programmes for art, alongside making a large number of new acquisitions each year. The team members rotate between the sites and often travel with artworks when they are loaned out around the world, in order to condition check, help install, or advise on Tate’s best practice for handling. “Currently, for example, some of my technicians are in Shanghai, Seoul, St Petersburg, and I have someone going to Paris today, too,” says Godwin.
The art-handling team are part of Tate’s Collection Care division, which also includes library and archive; photography; registrars (who manage legal, logistical and documentation elements); and the conservation team, who manage the preservation of artworks. “As a division, we are looking after the whole of Tate’s collection. All of us work behind the scenes,” says Godwin. “What we do is collaborative – you can’t have art come in and go on show without all of those people being involved in some form.”
Interpersonal skills are key to the role and many of the technicians form strong working relationships with curators and exhibiting artists during an installation. Some new recruits also come from an artistic background. “Many have come in with some experience of working in other galleries, are practising artists or have backgrounds as artist’s assistants,” says Godwin. ”This is often one of the more challenging aspects of installing – actually working with an artist on-site to successfully deliver their vision.”
In this respect, the art-handling team become part of the process of creating that artwork within the space. “One of the great things about working here is that you’re often the first people to install a really exciting new acquisition and figure out how it all goes together,” she says. “There’s a piece by Jeremy Deller called The Battle of Orgreave, which we often tour around the UK. Part of that process involves a technician installing it each time, because they have to paste the artwork on the wall – they are partly recreating that work anew every single time.”
The whole installation process involves problem solving and patience. Teams also have to formulate or consult installation files, to ensure consistency and safety each time an artwork is exhibited. “Last year we worked with Cerith Wyn Evans, who we commissioned to create a neon installation in the Duveen galleries [in Tate Britain],” says Godwin, describing Forms in Space … by Light (in Time) (2017), which comprises 1.2 miles of neon lighting, suspended in lines, curves and spirals from the 8-metre high ceiling.
“It was basically hundreds of neon tubes, and we had to work on-site every day with a specialist to make sure we were handling and managing the neons correctly … There was a map devised of the ceiling space and each neon was numbered, with a hanging system of fishing wires all at specific lengths, so that everything hung in exactly the right place.”
After what can be weeks of installation for a single artwork, the sense of achievement is priceless, says Godwin. “You walk out after an installation and look back at it, pristine and perfect, hanging and in the gallery – the team come out exhausted but so happy when they see the final artwork up in all its glory.”
Tate’s art-handling team are a diverse group, Godwin says. You don’t need a degree (although many have one), and not all are from an artistic background – some come from carpentry, metalwork or painting and decorating, for instance. There is also often a focus on existing transferable skills, such as an interest in art and a “practical outlook”, which can be developed during training.
All new starters complete an extensive three-month induction course, covering use of specialist equipment such as transit frames, slings, fixtures, fittings, forklifts, genies (scissor lifts) and stackers (used to get things up high on the wall), along with health and safety elements.
Training and development continues on the job too. “Realistically, a lot of Tate’s collection is contemporary, and so the skills of our technicians need to reflect it,” says Godwin, who is used to dealing with the additional complexities of highly experimental art or new materials. “The other key thing is the scale of art – that’s changed dramatically over the past two decades. You might have an artwork come in and it is one piece of paper, or then a sculpture that arrives in 20 crates.”
“It’s vital that we train our staff and we keep that training relevant and updated with the collection,” she says. “We are constantly adapting and looking to develop – to find out if there’s a safer, better, or more efficient way of doing things.” In part, this is the responsibility of the principal art-handling technician, who guides and trains staff, while evaluating and researching the latest technical developments in the industry, which often reflect changes in art practice too.
This is often the career path that technicians and senior technicians take, along with conservation or team management, with Godwin’s full support. She says one of the best things about her job is using her experience to help her team flourish. “Being the person to give our technicians new experiences and challenges is so rewarding, from organising for them to complete their first installation, to sending them on their first courier trip. Helping them to build their careers and develop the profile of art handling worldwide makes me hugely proud.”
Key to art handling is a desire to really care for the artwork, hence the division’s name. “My entire team are so enthusiastic, really skilled and they all care 100% about the collection,” says Godwin. “We know that the end line of what we do is for the public to enjoy the collection. By being really proficient in our skills and our technical ability, people can walk into that gallery every day and be mesmerised by the art.”
