You may think of New York’s Kasmin Gallery as a place to look at art, but it is really a moving company, and what they are moving is art. Thousands of artworks. Pieces get trucked and shipped (or flown) to and from clients’ homes, storage facilities, conservators, artists and between eight to twelve art fairs around the world. “Every day, we’re shipping objects,” said Eric Gleason, Kasmin’s head of sales, noting that the gallery has five registrars “who are working all day long” on arranging the transportation of artworks (which must be packed, crated, shipped and insured) using the gallery’s own truckers for local moves and outside companies for longer trips.

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Art fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach—on now, alongside Art Miami, Untitled Art Miami Beach and NADA—and the associated moving costs make up a significant part of most galleries’ overhead, ranking neck-and-neck with rent and just behind salaries for staff, who are often spending much of their time preparing artworks for shipment or even transporting pieces. Unsurprisingly, gallery staff contacted by Observer were reluctant to provide actual percentages or dollar amounts for shipping artworks. Still, San Francisco gallery owner Todd Hosfelt said, “We’re a logistics company,” which suggests that the figures are high.

Galleries don’t have any alternative but to keep the fine art trucking companies busy because they need to reach people where they are. “Art fairs drive our economy,” said Sique Spence, director of New York’s Nancy Hoffman Gallery, which participates in four art fairs annually, sending between thirty and........

© Observer