Lending a work to an exhibition is when a collector temporarily entrusts a painting, sculpture or drawing to a museum, gallery or other institution so that it can be exhibited. The work remains the lender’s property and returns home when the exhibition ends. Most major exhibitions rest on loans, because no institution has everything in its own collection. Indeed, the picture gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts, the forerunner of the National Gallery in Prague, was created in 1796 largely from loans by aristocratic collectors.
The institution sends a request with the title, dates and venue of the exhibition, and both sides then sign a loan agreement. The borrower usually pays for packing, transport and nail-to-nail insurance (covering the work from the moment it leaves your wall until it is back on it). The condition of the work is recorded in a condition report on departure, on arrival and on return. For valuable works the lender may insist on a courier who travels with the work and oversees its installation. The label then states where the work has come from.
The main advantage is prestige. A line reading “exhibited” is added to the work’s documentation, and it raises both the price and the standing of the work. A work that has hung in the National Gallery, in Tate or in the Centre Pompidou sells quite differently from one that has only hung above your sofa. The risk lies in every handling, every journey and every change of climate. And in the fact that you will miss the work at home for several months. Is the empty wall worth it? With a good exhibition, almost always.
Before you sign the agreement, be clear about the insured value of the work, the conditions of the exhibition space (light, temperature, humidity) and who pays which costs. Ask for a copy of the condition report and, after the exhibition, for the catalogue in which the work is listed. Keep both in your collection file, because one day they will make up its provenance. And what if you own the work only as a share? At Art Part Club the club takes care of loans, just as it does of storage, insurance and documentation.
— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club
Related terms: Exhibition history · Provenance · Art insurance · Institutional collections · Solo exhibition at an institution
