Artnet News: Shipping in the Age of Covid

Pandemic delays continue to effect the shipping industry globally and the impact on art shipping is significant. Advisors, dealers, and buyers must readjust their expectations—on costs and timing.

In her article in Artnet News Pro, journalist Eileen Kinsella explores the significant impact of global shipping delays facing the art market today. With the increased volume of art being sold and transported, labor shortages, and bottlenecked routes, the shipping industry is under more strain than ever, with no signs of slowing down. Read the full article here.

The Shutdown

Covid-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020 by the World Health Organization, forcing businesses to come to a halt, including domestic and international shipping. With sea routes closed, shipping containers stuck in ports, and a marked decrease in air travel, there was no way for shipping companies to keep up with the increase in luxury spending as the art market actively continued.

The costs of air and sea travel have increased exponentially, with air freight rates reaching four-times their pre-pandemic norm, and transport by sea has doubled. These price increases have raised questions of price gouging and unnecessary delays among those trying to continue business as usual.

Regardless, people had artwork in transit at the time of the shutdown, including many of our clients. In March 2020, advisors and collectors had purchased artwork at the Armory Show in New York and Frieze Los Angeles and could not get accurate updates on their location and movemen. Collectors had loaned artworks to museums, fine art trucks were in transit, and borders were shutting down. At the time, I had just purchased a work located in London for a client through a gallery at Frieze Los Angeles. In trying to ship it out of England to the U.S., the timeframe of 6 months and thousands of dollars in shipping fees were prohibitive.

I knew I was not the only art advisor with clients affected. With the APAA, I organized an live online meeting to find solutions for shipping, inviting industry experts in shipping and insurance to offer advice and protocols to meet the challenge. Our APAA members were eager for advice: a total of 90 advisors tuned in to the first online call. This led to a year long a series of over 55 online seminars for our members that lasted throughout the pandemic—addressing challenges and finding solutions.

The New Normal

Dealers, advisors, and clients are coming to terms with the longer wait times for fine art shipments and higher prices for transit and installation. New customs and import/export protocols, staff shortages and increased activity in the market make it more challenging to deliver works to clients in the timeframes we used to expect. National, regional, and local fine art shipping and installation companies are booked months out making advance planning essential.

In our practice, we continue to uphold the requisite standards for safe packing, transport and installation of our client’s collections. Navigating the new challenges of shipping simply requires the planning of our team and our relationships with preferred firms for transport, installation, framing, conservation, and insurance to ensure care for our client’s growing collections.