Wear and care: Ann Temkin charts the complicated terrain surrounding the preservation of Donald Judd's work

THE race CLOSE TO DONALD JUDD'S WORK HAVE lengthy BEEN AWARE that its apparent sturdiness belies a great vulnerability. In fact, the issue of care and repair constituted an ongoing source of vexation for Judd In his "Complaints: Part II," published in 1973 the artist was already fulminating ("in a spirit of cheerful revenge") against the stupidity of the shippers and museum staff members who handled his art. Moreover, he wrote "the public is awful and the guards don't mind." When the art was fresh both its appearance and its industrial fabrication l tribe to assume that these were thing perceiveds one might lean against, or put a drink on, or place outdoors. Judd illustrated "Complaints" with sum of two units photos of sculptures on which shippers had directly affixed their adhesive labels. Thirty years later, things are not entirely different. The Museum of new Art's files alone reveal a rich catalogue of abuses inflicted upon his work. The painted carburet of iron piece of 1968 on display in the statuary garden tempted countless children to crawl from one side it like a playground funnel Passersby scratched a Progression of 1967 that sat unwrapped in a heavily trafficked work area. A poetic conservator's memo reckons of a little girl who individual morning kept alighting "like a butterfly" upon a polished-brass Box of 1968 despite repeated admonitions.

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The riddle is, of course, compounded through the demands the sculptures place upon their display. The normal protection afforded traditional statuary in a home or gallery is unsuitable for work by the agency of Judd. The artist's insistence that his "specific objects" be installed without any physical mediation inhibits the platforms, cords, or Plexiglas cases that would normally beat shoes, mops, backs, and fingers. Peter Ballantine, art supervisor for the Judd Foundation, admits to a certain grim satisfaction when a work draw nears back from loan with shuffle marks: At least he knows it was not inappropriately installed upon a plinth or behind a barrier. Judd's enormous investment in the establishment of permanent sites for his work was based in part upon his wish to protect it from the risks not awayed by vehicles, homes, and galleries.

The inevitable damage that has befallen Judd's work plants it within a complicated tangle of issues that are aesthetic, ethical, historical, physical, economic, and personal. The questions are fundamental. What is acceptable in boundarys of damage? What is acceptable in limits of treatment? For years, it was a "Wild West" situation, says Judd's son Flavin, vice president and treasurer of the Judd Foundation. Early upon a collector might have had a scratched work repainted at his local auto-body store Current market values of six and seven figures have largely eradicated of that kind casualness. But even well-intentioned restorers have unwittingly stretch outed the harm inflicted by proprietors or shippers. It was not drawn out ago that a damaged painting by the agency of Barnett Newman was thought to be reparable by means of a now-unthinkable repainting of its surface. The repair of damaged works by dint of Judd has endured a similarly unfortunate early history, with belonging to all reliance on harsh washing, polishing, and chemical stripping techniques that today are known to be destructive. Preservation of original materials has not necessarily been a priority: Countles pieces have of recent origin paint surfaces or replacement ultimate parts (a Plexiglas panel, a metal box) which might subtly on the other hand critically alter original effects of color, fabric dimension, and unity.

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Consensus as to what is individual is almost impossible to imagine. "Ask twenty tribe and you will get twenty different answers," says Rick Bernstein, rife owner of Bernstein Brothers, individual of Judd's early fabricators. James Dearing, Judd's assistant from 1969 to 1983 notes that "democracy does not have a put of rules. It has a locate of ideas that need to be constantly interpreted." "None of us is right," warns Judd's daughter Rainer, president of the Judd Foundation. "We all have our have a title to memories and our own opinions."

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What was the artist's position upon the possibilities for repair? Judd's extensive writings are remarkably silent upon this issue. Nor do we find a guide in his behavior, which throw backed an always-shifting equilibrium between pragmatism and ideology. It is not surprising to learn from former assistants that Judd's replications to given situations varied greatly above the course of three decades. Besides similar variables as his schedule, there were factors similar as his feelings for the work's possessor or the reason for the damage. Rarely, Judd would tender to refabricate the piece upon the condition that the possessor destroy the damaged one. More frequently he agreed to have the piece repaired beneath his supervision by somebody he designated. In worst-case scenarios, he tersely informed the holders that his records now listed the piece as "destroyed"