Art Is on the Way

In early 2012, Southern California residents gathered to watch something extraordinary: a 340-ton granite boulder inching through their streets at night.

The massive rock traveled 105 miles from a quarry in Riverside County to its new home at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Moving at about one mile per hour on a transporter nearly the length of a football field, it crawled through 22 cities over 11 nights, drawing crowds along the way.

The journey culminated in the boulder’s installation atop a 456-foot-long concrete trench on the LACMA campus, where it became part of artist Michael Heizer’s earthwork Levitated Mass.

A large, multidisciplinary team ensured the rock’s safe passage. The move required a custom 196-wheel transporter, hundreds of permits, and the temporary removal of streetlights and utility lines—making the boulder’s transition to LACMA as monumental as the work itself.

Most artworks, of course, aren’t that mammoth. But even small, seemingly stable objects require extraordinary care in transit. A painting might travel for treatment; a historic artifact, for analysis; a costume, for exhibition; or a sculpture, for storage. With each move comes risk. A piece might have spent decades in one place, only to face more extreme humidity, temperature, and vibration conditions during transport than it ever had experienced before—or encounter mishandling when moved at the lending or receiving institution.

These threats aren’t just hypothetical. In fact, damage during transportation is the leading cause of insurance claims in the art world. A Picasso ceramic bust once shattered in transit despite a specially designed shipping case. An Andy Warhol self-portrait was ripped by a gust of wind as it was carried from a gallery to a moving van.

So how do you get a work of art that needs to move—whether for a loan, research, or conservation—from point A to point B without damaging it? The answer lies in collaboration: a complex web of stewards that includes curators, registrars, art handlers, conservators, and scientists, whose research supports every step of the process. Since 2013, the Managing Collection Environments (MCE) Initiative of the Getty Conservation Institute has built on this foundation by advancing the understanding of environmental conditions for collections—not only in galleries and storage but also during transit.

Monitoring transit, during transit

Each time an artwork is moved, it offers valuable insights to the cultural heritage community, and when that information is shared among professionals, it contributes to a growing body of knowledge. This is why the transportation environment of art objects has become its own area of study within the heritage field. Work in this area has been growing steadily since an influential 1991 international conference in London (Art in Transit), which led to major reference publications and helped establish professional organizations such as the Preparation, Art Handling, Collections Care Information Network (PACCIN) and the Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS).

Working closely with the Getty Museum’s preparations and conservation departments, Conservation Institute scientist Vincent Laudato Beltran has helped develop tools and protocols to monitor temperature, relative humidity, vibration, and shock during transit.

A shock event is a sudden, high-force impact—like when a crate is dropped or jolted during loading. Repetitive vibrations can come from a transport vehicle (tires, suspension) and its road conditions (potholes, speed bumps), air turbulence, or even nearby concerts.

Getty’s preparations team, responsible for the physical handling and installation of artworks—as well as the packing, crating, and storage of art—is renowned for its double-crate packing system: the outer crate provides protection from the environment, while the inner one houses the object. Cushioning materials are placed between the inner and outer crates—on all six sides. Within the inner one, preparators cushion the work with a combination of rigid and soft foams to further absorb shock and dampen vibration.

Still, crate performance wasn’t regularly tested in the field. While it’s fairly common to monitor temperature and relative humidity, tracking shock and vibration requires specialized instruments and is less typical—so Conservation Institute scientists began consistently collecting this data to better understand what happens to artworks inside their packing crates during transit.

To do so, the MCE team developed a monitoring protocol that placed accelerometers (which measure shock and vibration) and temperature and humidity sensors at multiple locations: outside the crate, between the inner and outer crates, and near the object itself. When possible, accelerometers were also placed on the floors of transit vehicles for comparison.

When objects were packed—typically by Getty preparators—the sensors and data loggers were installed to begin collecting data. During transport, the courier traveling with the artwork recorded the times of key transit events for the crated object: loading and unloading from trucks, departures and arrivals at loading docks and airports, plane takeoffs and landings, and any significant shock or vibration events. Once the item was unpacked at its destination, the courier stopped the data collection and returned the sensors and data loggers to Getty for analysis.

This allowed researchers to assess how well the packing systems absorbed shock, dampened vibration, and mitigated temperature and relative humidity fluctuations—not just during transport but also during the potentially more vulnerable moments of loading and unloading.

To date, Getty has collected data from more than 30 shipments of crated objects, including works from both Getty’s collection and those of partner institutions such as LACMA and the Huntington. Getty scientists have found that shock levels are typically low during air travel, slightly higher on the road, and greatest at airports—which may coincide with the movement of the crate within a warehouse or to the plane on dollies. Damage to the object, however, has not been observed upon arrival at the destination, confirming the double-crating system’s success.

The green future of art transportation

Art travel’s impact on the global climate crisis is a new concern in the field. Collections care experts are exploring ways to integrate sustainable practices into the process, such as consolidating shipments, increasing remote monitoring, expanding sea freight options, developing alternative crate designs, and employing greener packing materials.

Recognizing the urgency of these challenges, experts in cultural heritage saw the need to revisit and update best practices. More than 30 years after the original Art in Transit conference, the Conservation Institute led planning for the Towards Art in Transit 2.0 symposium. With sustainability as a central theme, the event took place both in person and online ahead of the 2024 American Institute for Conservation (AIC) Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City—the biggest convening for conservators across the US—and covered a range of topics through expert panels, Q&A sessions, and live demonstrations.

Since then, the conversation has continued with the development of the hands-on Crating 101 workshop, presented by PACCIN and AIC earlier this year at the 2025 AIC Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, as well as transit-focused sessions scheduled for the 2025 ARCS conference in St. Louis and 2026 International Council of Museums–Committee for Conservation triennial conference in Oslo. These are only some of the efforts helping to shape future transport-focused events around the world.

“As we develop this community of collections care professionals involved in art in transit,” Beltran says, “it is important to ensure that we work together, share existing and new resources, and close the gap between research and practice.”

The transportation of the boulder for Levitated Mass—one of the largest megaliths moved since ancient times—was accomplished through partnership, engineering, and planning. Getty art handlers, registrars, conservators, and scientists carry that spirit forward, advancing the practice of art transit through interdisciplinary and cross-border collaborations so masterpieces can travel safely and inspire awe far beyond their origins.