Collections care technician with over a decade of experience managing dynamic exhibition installations, time-based media technologies, lighting design, facility maintenance, and physical/digital archives with an emphasis on safety, collaboration, and preventative conservation.

The following pictures document select moments during my formative time as an Art Preparator, Lighting Designer, & Media Technician at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly named the Albright-Knox Art Gallery).

This work was completed between September 2015 and June 2023 (jump to most recent work).

Moving: Handling & Transportation

Navigating a large travel frame containing a Clyfford Still painting into a low-profile tractor trailer with a large team of preparators.

Continuing to navigate a large travel frame containing a Clyfford Still painting into a low-profile tractor trailer with a large team of preparators.

Landing a crate via crane on a purpose-built stage.

Lining up over two-dozen large crates that were rigged and hoisted via crane moments before.

Working with a team of preparators to change the orientation of a Takashi Murakami crate for travel.

Collaboratively moving a Takashi Murakami crate through tight quarters with millimeters to spare.

Securely packed pallets and c-bins of works on paper during an enormous collections-to-storage operation.

Attention to detail in the largest and smallest of tasks.

A fragment of travel frames before preparing and packing them with masterworks during an enormous collections-to-storage operation.

Installation: Technical Know-How, Team Coordination & Project Management

Moments before lifting Anselm Kiefer’s massive *der Morgenthau Plan* (2012) onto two custom-fabricated reinforced cleats.

Installing large squares of beeswax on Wolfgang Laib’s *Without Beginning and Without End (2005)* with a colleague and artist studio assistant.

Finalizing the placement of beeswax on a purpose-built wooden pyramid structure.

Applying the finishing touches with a small team.

Working with artist Eric N. Mack, preparators, and curators to place Vogue Fabrics.

Prep work for Takashi Murakami’s large-scale series of paintings, The Deep End of the Universe.

Teaching new full-time preparators to accurately hang a grid of eighteen Sherrie Levine framed prints.

Piecing together thirty-two panels of delicate chalk on wood by Pascale Marthine Tayou. Pictured: Chalk Fresco A, (2015).

Navigating layers of installation throughout various mediums.

Confirming level on Kenneth Noland’s Wild Indigo (1967).

On the lift helping place Nari Ward’s 144'“ tall Loisaidas LiquorsouL (2011) sculpture.

Leading a small team of preparators to precisely install more than 4,500 postcards for Oriol Vilanova’s Anything, Everything (assembled 2019).

Installation view of Oriol Vilanova’s Anything, Everything (assembled 2019).

Working view of Hervé Tullet’s Shape and Color (organized in 2021) at Albright-Knox Northland, a satellite gallery.

Detail of a temporary wall built around the architecture of the building.

Placing Rachel Whiteread’s extremely delicate resin Doorway I (2010).

Overseeing the unpacking and installation of Howardena Pindell’s rolled New York: Night Light (1977) at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Working with a curator to get the placement of several John Pfahl photographs.

Installation view of *Matisse and the Art of Jazz* (January 20–July 1, 2018), including a grid of twenty newly framed works on paper.

Installation: Rigging, Lifting & Outdoor Sculpture Maintenance

Communicating on the ground with the crane operator and preparators to safely guide a large crate into the museum.

Tens of thousands of pounds of Robert Indiana sculptures safely in place for *Robert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective* (June 16–September 23, 2018).

Lowering a Robert Indiana sculpture into place with a team of preparators, registrars, and contractors.

Uprighting a Robert Indiana crate that was too tall to fit into the gallery in its proper orientation.

Planning to lift Danh Võ’s We The People [Detail] (2011-2016) off of its travel pallet.

Working with Public Art to strip and repaint Shayne Dark’s Tanglewood (2006).

Collaborating with rigging specialists and engineers to relocate Nancy Rubins’s monumental sculpture, Monochrome I, Built to Live Anywhere, at Home Here (2010-2011).

Performing preventative conservation to wrap Jaume Plensa’s Laura (2012) before construction on a new museum building commenced.

Performing preventative conservation to wrap Do Ho Suh’s Karma (2010) before construction on a new museum building commenced.

Documented performing preventative conservation on Augustus Saint-Gaudensto’s Eight Caryatid Figures (1906-1907) before construction on a new museum building commenced.

Assisting an outside rigging company with the removal of Tony Smith’s Cigarette (1961).

Installation: Lighting & Time-Based Media

Operating a boom lift indoors to light works of art from hard-to-reach portions of track at one of Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s satellite galleries.

Booming over Ronny Quevedo’s repurposed basketball court to access hard-to-reach portions of the lighting track.

Installation view of Patrick Martinez’s neon works in Comunidades Visibles: The Materiality of Migration (2021), an installation at Albright-Knox Northland, a satellite gallery.

Installation view of Nam June Paik’s newly restored Piano Piece (1993).

Performing maintenance and replacing bulbs in George Segal’s Cinema (1963).

Preparing exhibition technology.

Preparing and installing exhibition technology.

Electricity research and experiments during a limited-seat time-based media workshop through NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, Conservation Center in January of 2021.

Solving a need for power with ingenuity.

Preparing a gallery wall for a digital projection.

Mounting a projector thirty feet above the floor for Anthony McCall’s Dark Rooms, Solid Light in 2019.

Finishing adjustments on Anthony McCall’s Dark Rooms, Solid Light in 2019.

Fabrication: Archival Storage

Practicing new methods of archival box making at home during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overseeing a full-time preparator pack John McHale’s First Contact (1958).

Demonstration of a custom form-fitting blueboard box fabricated for a highly-sensitive bust.

Hundreds of recently acquired Marisol Escobar studies required highly-detailed custom archival solutions.

Gathering exact measurements in collaboration with the Registrars to facilitate the order of a new strip frame.

Fabrication: Carpentry & Crate Building

Guiding teams to fabricate complex, large-scale custom crates necessary to move masterworks in the Buffalo AKG’s collection to storage in preparation for the museum’s significant expansion project.

Recent Work, 2023

Between March and June of 2023, I was responsible for lighting more than 430 works of art, from masterworks to recent acquisitions, for Buffalo AKG’s inaugural reopening—after temporarily closing in 2019 for a major expansion project—including three renovated and brand-new buildings, spanning over 50,000 square feet of interior exhibition space.

I implemented state-of-the-art lighting systems while working closely with curators and registrars to design a balance between safe and exquisite light levels. In addition, I trained new technicians on safe museum lighting standards and collaborated with a core team of art preparators to handle the preparation, movement, and installation of collection-based artworks.

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All pictures courtesy of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and its affiliates: Tom Loonan, Brenda Bieger, Amanda Smith, Jeff Mace, Marco Cappelletti, William Bergmann, Tina Rivers Ryan, Tom Powel Imaging; additional behind-the-scenes pictures and video by Karl Frederick Mattson.

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