AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

A.M. Art Conservation, established in 2009, has had the privilege of working with a diverse clientele, including private collectors, artist estates, museums, and galleries. While we offer our expertise for individual projects, our most gratifying experiences stem from cultivating enduring relationships with our clients and making a lasting impact on the preservation of their collections. In this paper, we aim to spotlight one particularly significant collaboration: a seven-year ongoing endeavor focused on the research, exhibition, and guardianship of the artistic legacy of Michael Richards (1963-2001). This collaborative initiative brought together A.M. Art Conservation, curators Melissa Levin and Alex Fialho, alongside other art professionals, and the estate of the artist.

Michael Richards, an artist of Jamaican and Costa Rican heritage, left a mark on the art world with his nationally and internationally exhibited works. His portfolio encompassed multi-part indoor and outdoor sculptures, time-based media, installations, and drawings. He garnered recognition in museum collections, earned prestigious awards, and participated in numerous residency programs. Tragically, his life was cut short on September 11, 2001, after working overnight in his World Trade Center studio.

In 2016, during the curation of a survey exhibition marking 15 years since Richards’ passing, Levin and Fialho contacted Dawn Dale, Richards' cousin, who had become the custodian of his work. Despite Richards' meticulous packing and Dale’s dedication to his legacy, the artwork had endured the ravages of a storage facility fire, multiple relocations, and suboptimal conditions. The resurfacing of numerous prescient and impactful sculptural artworks, along with fragments, molds, studies, drawings, photos, slides, and ephemera from his life, led to a sustained commitment to and advocacy for Richards’ art and legacy.

A.M. Art Conservation's involvement tracked a conventional path of stabilizing and preparing the works for display, carefully managing both time and budget constraints. We approached the holistic body of work in a triage format, prioritizing actions to benefit the most vulnerable pieces within the allocated time frame. Over time, fresh insights into the work emerged through archival photos, discussions, and recollections from Richards' friends and colleagues.

As the collaboration progressed, additional artworks surfaced, and with the curators preparing for a traveling retrospective, we assumed a leadership role in establishing comprehensive museum practices and engaged fellow professionals to address the collection's requirements. Working with the curators we proposed treatments and budgets, and they ultimately secured a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation. The funding facilitated continued treatment, improved storage conditions, enhanced packing and transportation protocols, and the design of a collection management database. This paper will discuss the challenges and successes of managing an ongoing collaboration in a private practice context.

Since 2016, Michael Richards' work has been exhibited at five national venues including The Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami. Through our collaborative efforts, we have reduced the collection's risk and empowered the estate to better preserve the work while increasing the artwork's exposure to wider audiences.