Operational Continuity Infrastructure for the Art World
Between consignment chains, co-signs, loans, transit events, and fair installations; high-value works move through dozens of hands with no shared record of what occurred. Oeuvre Continuity is the infrastructure that changes that.
The Problem
Scenario A - Consignment Chain
An artist consigns a work to their primary gallery. The gallery co-signs it to a partner gallery abroad for a group show. When the work returns damaged, there is no agreed record of its condition at each handover point. The claim dispute takes months. The relationship breaks.
Scenario B - Transit Event
A work ships from Johannesburg to Basel. It passes through three freight handlers, a customs hold, and a temporary art fair warehouse. Nobody holds a single document trail that covers the full custody chain. The insurer cannot reconstruct what happened.
Scenario C - Loan Agreement
A collector loans a work to a museum for 18 months. The work is handled by three different registrars, moved for conservation, and photographed. When it returns, the condition report references objects and events that no longer have a home in any system.
Scenario D - Regulatory Exposure
EU AMLD5 and AMLD6 require documented custody chains for high-value art transactions by law. Most galleries and dealers have no infrastructure to produce this record on demand. Compliance is a manual scramble every time.
What We Do
01
One record per object
Every work has a single, persistent record that travels with it across galleries, shippers, fairs, museums, and private hands. No matter how many systems exist around it.
02
Every handover documented
Each time a work changes hands, location, or condition, that moment is captured and attached to the record. The full history is always retrievable, not reconstructed after the fact.
03
Built for how the industry actually works
Designed by someone who has managed hundreds of shipments across three continents. It fits the real operational environment, not a theoretical one.
04
Ready when it matters
Insurance claims, dispute resolution, regulatory audits, provenance due diligence. When the question comes, the answer already exists.
Share Your Experience
We are building Oeuvre Continuity with practitioners, not for them. If you have worked in galleries, logistics, insurance, collections management, or the secondary market, your experience shapes what we build. The survey takes under five minutes.
Real Situations
Consignment chains, damaged transit, co-signs between galleries, loan agreements, custody disputes, condition changes. If any of this sounds familiar, we'd like to hear about it.
Oeuvre Continuity is currently in pre-seed development. We are working with a small number of galleries, logistics providers, insurers, and collectors ahead of our full launch. If you would like to explore what that looks like for your organisation, get in touch and we will set up a conversation.