Download as PDF
View on The New York Times

Art handlers are the workhorses of the museum world, with duties that range from the mundane (lugging sculptures) to the challenging (operating pneumatic liftgates) as they install the shows that the public will later see.

And at MoMA PS1 in Queens, they are mostly artists themselves.

Marley Freeman, for example, is a painter, well received in many quarters, and like many of her colleagues, she views her art as her primary job. But art handling helps pay the bills, and she cherishes the flexibility that her part time hours allow.

Still, she said in an interview, she was upset this year when she noted the difference between what handlers were earning in Queens and what installers were being paid to do essentially equivalent work at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. When both PS 1 and the MoMA mother ship staged parts of a Bruce Nauman show, for example, the handlers in Manhattan, full-time members of the museum staff with benefits, were paid as much as $47 an hour. The top rate in Queens was $30 an hour.

“I feel as an artist worker you’re betwixt and between,” Ms. Freeman said in a telephone interview. “You aren’t seen as a professional art handler. At PS1 they are always treating us like this is just temporary work we’re doing between other things.”

The disparity led the art handlers in Queens, who do not receive health insurance or other benefits, to begin demonstrating outside the museum last month as they worked to negotiate a new contract to replace one that expired in the fall.

Robert Wilson, the business representative for Local 30 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, said the handlers at PS 1 are “doing the same work as the people at MoMA and they deserve to have the same pay or close.”

In a statement, PS1 called their installers and maintenance staff, who are also negotiating a new contract, “a terrific team.”

“We are committed to reaching a new contract with Local 30 and continue to make progress in negotiations,” the museum said. “It’s been a productive process, and we’re confident we’ll arrive at an amicable resolution.”

Most handlers in New York City have an art background, said Matt Chastain, who has a decade of experience in the field. He has worked as a handler at PS1 for two years and has also worked at the Gagosian gallery and with international art fairs. But, he said, many handlers end up foregoing their artistic practices if they accept a full-time job as an installer.