Awards
2009 CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
Carol Stringari and Chris McGlinchey
Carol Stringari
CAA honors Carol Stringari and Chris McGlinchey for Imageless: The Scientific Study and Experimental Treatment of an Ad Reinhardt Black Painting, the presentation of their work on the AXA Conservation Research Project, in conjunction with their respective museums. The results of this effort were several: a major advance in the understanding of Ad Reinhardt’s materials and techniques; the improvement of a relatively new conservation technique, laser ablation, which now holds much greater promise for the treatment of intractable problems like those posed by Reinhardt’s damaged and overpainted black paintings; and the presentation of these findings in a modest but remarkable catalogue and exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum that presented the damaged work together with pristine examples by the artist and a lucid explanation of the treatment and findings, assisted by a video produced for an exhibition.
The project came about when the insurance company AXA Art offered to donate Reinhardt’s Black Painting (1960–66), which had been deemed a total loss because of damage during exhibition-related travel, to the Guggenheim Museum. Funded by a research grant from AXA, Stringari led a seven-year research effort whose goal was not the restoration of the painting but rather the kind of aggressive examination and experimental treatment that is only possible with a work that most likely cannot be salvaged.
Chris McGlinchey
The project involved an ambitious effort of logistics that included bringing the painting to Crete, in order to use ultraviolet lasers at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser at the Foundation for Research and Technology, and to the Netherlands, to use the industrial laser cleaning station at Art Innovation. In addition, laser techniques were tested on mockups of the painting at the Lase Conservation Research Facility at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Many colleagues at these and other institutions were essential to the success of the project. Chris McGlinchey was an indispensable member of the research team (which is not feasible to honor in toto here). The judicious conclusion to his essay in the catalogue is worth quoting:
We now know that it appears possible—albeit via extraordinary measures—to remove intractable overpaint from fragile porous surfaces like those created by Reinhardt. This type of overpainting should not be considered a viable alternative to the recovery of an original Reinhardt surface, however, even if the overpaint could be formulated to have the look of the original: the fact remains that a large amount of work must be expended to reverse such an intractable material, and the state of the art of conservation is a long way from making it routine for works in this condition.
Jury: Harry Cooper, National Gallery of Art, chair; Jonathan Binstock, Corcoran Gallery of Art; and Wynne Phelan, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
