Jessica Ahlgren of Edict (Spain) explains the special challenges they faced in sending the inaugural exhibition of Contemporary art to TEA. Tenerife is the largest of the Canary Islands located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa and serviced mainly by ferries from the port of Cadiz in the south of Spain.

With the opening of the contemporary art museum Tenerife Espacia des Artes (TEA), in the autumn of 2008, EDICT was contracted to handle their inaugural exhibition Maternidades Cósmicas (Cosmic Maternities) and have since then worked on a regular basis with TEA.

To arrange and coordinate art transports to the island of Tenerife is not as simple as most people imagine.

The lack of a proper art logistics agent there, the necessity of sending equipment and personnel by sea to the site, as well as the specific customs formalities, make the coordination and realisation of these transports quite complicated and sometimes expensive.

So that you can understand the complexities and the expense, here are some hints to give you a clear idea of what transport to TEA and the Canary Islands really involves.

From Madrid, road transport can take up to 15 or even 20 days from when our drivers depart until they get back. The ferries depart from Cadiz – in the south of Spain – only twice a week. The drive from Madrid to Cadiz takes about 8-10 hours and then once on the ferry it is 3 days until you reach the port of Cadiz. Once delivery and un-packing is completed the truck may have to wait 3-4 days until the departure of the next ferry for the mainland. Then 3 days on the ferry and another day drive back to Madrid..

Another option, of course, is air shipment, however this is not so simple either. There is no
specialized agent at Tenerife that can handle supervisions and there are no air-ride, climatised trucks available.

For the exhibition Maternidades Cosmicas we had loans from international museums such
as Hamburger Kunsthalle; Centre Georges Pompidou; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna;
Smithsonian American Art Museum; Honolulu Academy of Arts and so on. Most of these Museums could not agree to have their loans travel on the ferry for three days and so requested air shipment.

The freighter from Madrid to Tenerife departs at 08.40a.m., which meant we had to palletize
around 03.00 a.m. Not a lovely hour for being at the cargo terminal!

The smaller crates we could fortunately send on passenger flights with more decent timetables.

In order to have climatised, air-ride truck with tail-lift for the transport from the airport in Tenerife to the museum we had to opt for sending one of our trucks by ferry to Tenerife before the first air shipment arrived. We put loans from private lenders for the exhibition that didn’t mind an early transport on this truck and delivered them to the Museum and then kept this truck on Tenerife to use for the local transports.

For the airport supervisions we applied for passes for the tarmac ten days in advance and had no problem in getting them, but we had to send a supervisor on-site with all the cost that this involves.

The last thing to keep in mind when sending works of art to Tenerife is that all works have to be cleared through customs. Even though Tenerife is part of Spain, the Canary Islands have special regulations for customs so even for Spanish loans this is essential.

I certainly hope that this doesn’t put anybody off from lending or sending an exhibition to
Tenerife. Although the location is remote it is possible to provide Museum quality service.
Just make sure to check that the transport is being done according to the standards within our industry!