Earlier this month we talked with Dr. Peter Marzio, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, about a rash of overseas art thefts and how the museum guards against potential security threats. It's easier to protect artwork when it's hanging in a museum, but what about works the museum loans out to other institutions, especially ones located in the European danger zone? That's when a member of the museum staff is sent on assignment as a courier to accompany the work all the way to its destination. It sounds almost spy-like: traveling with multi-million dollar artworks to exotic locales and staying at upscale hotels--armed with an expense account. Of course, there's responsibility involved. You can't get too drunk and lose your $1.3 million-dollar cargo, like this guy did.

Nevertheless, it sounds like a super-cool job, and Art Attack wanted to find out how to get it. Just like we thought, it actually requires study and experience. Damn!

Julie Bakke, an art registrar (and frequent courier) for the MFAH, delivered the disappointing news.

"It's not as glamorous as people think. I've been in the registrar's profession for about 30 years. I started in the Philadelphia Museum of Art right out of college, and then I was at the Menil Collection for 16 years, and I've been at the MFA for nine years. Basically the registrar's office is in charge of, not only keeping the record on the collection--we're collection managers, and we're responsible for taking care of works in storage. But we're also responsible for the logistics of moving artwork in and out of the museum and within the museum.

In our museum, the pool of couriers comes from registrars, art handlers, conservators and curators. There are certain qualifications. Primarily the courier has to know how museums work, how to handle objects, know how to assess the condition of objects, and have a knowledge of general shipping procedures. Here, we have a basic training course and we have requirements--before doing an international trip, for instance, you have to do something more simple and build up to the more complicated ones.

We work through customs brokers and customs agents, and they in turn contract security, so we can actually go out on the tarmac planeside to make sure the crate doesn't get bumped off the plane. More often it's a concern of physical handling: If a crate's being moved with a forklift, making sure the forks don't go through the crate--that it's not dropped, that it's not tipped, not left out in the weather, things like that."