Second Careers in Profile: Art Installer

I was wonderfully surprised this week by an email from a reader who noticed that my Careers in Profile series lacked information on what it was like to work as an artist. Here are her interesting responses:

1. My name is:
Anna A., New York City

2. I am a/an: Art installer in major new york city art museums. I am a freelance worker, hired whenever a major museum needs to take down the exhibition they currently have on display and replace it with a new one.

3. Most people in this job have:

-an undergad degree in studio art,
-although some people have undergrad in things such music or art history along with a strong interest in ar
-a grad degree in studio art
-basic tool skills, such as using a hammer, power drill, level, measuring tape
-basic math skills such as measuring and figuring the center of a wall
-advanced material knowledge (knowing what is steel, concrete, drywall, plaster, wood, etc, and how to drill into these materials and hang things from them).

4. I think the three most useful personal skills I bring to this job that help me do it are

1) patience! being careful, very careful when handling paintings worth millions of dollars! always need to stop and think before doing something, to make sure it is the right thing to do. also, patience just waiting for the “go ahead” from the person in charge- the “curator”.

2) attention to detail! need to make sure a painting is hung perfectly within 1/4 in. or less. need to notice things that could harm artwork. need to notice scratched paint, etc.

3) ability to cooperate, work on a team. usually this job is done in a team of at least two people, often 4 or more people.

4) problem solving abilities.

5. Please rate your income level in this job when you first started in this profession (pick one)

d) sharing a two-bedroom apartment with only one other person

6. Please rate your income on the same sophisticated scale after

-five years in your profession
e) renting my own apartment
-ten years in your profession
haven’t got there yet, but with careful saving, perhaps:
f) scraped together a down payment and bought a starter starter house
g) renting a bigger house than I could buy

7. Please indicate how much of your job involves grunt work and how much involves substantive work. Grunt work here is defined as things you are being seriously overpaid to do (totally random example: when someone who made $50 an hour spent five hours xeroxing welcome packets for visiting congressman – ahem). Substantive work is defined as work you were really hired to do that involves thinking and (usually) writing of some kind.
any average day = x% grunt work / x%substantive work

Gosh, it is hard for me to guess at the percentage, but I will say there is a LOT of grunt work. This includes fetching screws, tools, paperwork, dusting artwork, vacuuming around artwork, and then waiting for your plan to be approved.
At least 50% grunt work.
Then the other 50% is spent getting to open up and look at really awesome artwork. Studying the back of it, the hangers, or the way it stands up, figuring out how to install it safely in the museum. Sometimes talking with the artist about what they would like to do. Sometimes problem solving how to get a gigantic crate filled with artwork off of a big truck. Eventually, some installers get to travel with the artwork to whatever city it is going to next (such as Paris, Barcelona, Los Angeles, etc). Those art installers are called “art couriers”. Sometimes they are in charge of installing the work at the new museum, and sometimes they just deliver it.

8. Does the grunt work/substantive work ratio increase over time in the career? decrease? stay the same?
The grunt work decreases over time. Though this isn’t really a career that most people want to have for a long time. It is more of a temporary career that you can do freelance while working on something else.

9. Do you know of instances of people starting this career as a second career? How did it go?

Well, I know of people who didn’t plan to have this career. They wanted their first career to be full-time artist or musician, but they didn’t make enough money, so they needed something else. It wouldn’t be an especially hard career to start a little bit later, as long as you had a serious interest in art. The hard part would be that in the beginning you would just have to fetch screws for a few months.

10. If you had it to do all over again, what would you do differently? Would you start in a different sub-field? Get a different undergraduate degree?

Well, this has been very instructive about the way that museums work. I’ve learned a lot and that will be helpful in making my own artwork. I wouldn’t really do something different, but I would like to focus on teaching art in universities, which is what I did for two years before moving to New York and becoming an art installer.

11. What demand will their be for your profession in ten years?

I think there will always be a demand for someone to install artwork in museums.

12. Is there a clear hierarchy in your job or can people strike out on their own and expand/rise quickly?

There is a clear hierarchy in the museums, but if you get a job in a gallery you will have a lot of responsibility right away. It is not hard to move in between museums and galleries once you make a few contacts.

13. How quickly do you assume large managerial duties in your job, if at all? Do you like this/not like it?

It took me a little over two years to run a “team” on my own. I got to be in charge of installing a project in a room in the museum. I felt that two years was a long time to wait. But running a “team” is not permanent, I still have to work on other people’s teams. But now that I have proved that I can do it, I am asked to run teams maybe once or twice a year.

14. Do you have to work for a large company is your profession? Can you work for smaller or medium-sized firms? Can you start your own?

Most museums are rather large, and hire around 20-30 art installers. Galleries can vary a lot, hiring from 10 to only 1 art installer. Some people work directly for an artist, and then the size depends on how much money the artist makes, but typically a famous artist would have 1 to 3 installers. Yes, there are privately owned art-installing firms. You can also work for an art crating company, if you want full-time work. The art-crating companies build crates to fit specifically around artworks. Then they often drive trucks and deliver the artwork. Other similar jobs include being an artist assistant, this usually pays less, but better for someone who doesn’t have much experience. Also building displays for museums such as the Natural History Museum.