When Art Falls Apart

As plastic used in modern art degrades, scientists turn to nanotechnology to put it back together.

Featured on scientificamerican.com

Conservators at museums and art galleries have a big worry. They believe there is a good chance the art they showcase now will not be fit to be seen in one hundred years. Why? After 1940, artists began using plastic-based material, like acrylic paint, that was a far cry from the oil-based paints used by classical painters. Plastic is also far more fragile, it turns out. Its chemical bonds readily break. And they cannot be restored using techniques historically relied upon by conservators.

So art conservation scientists have turned to nanotechnology for help. In a project called Nanorestart (the idea is to use nanomatierials to restore art) a consortium of 27 museums, universities, and chemical companies—financially supported by the European Union—began to tackle four tasks in 2015. The first goal is cleaning contemporary art surfaces. Second is stabilizing canvases and painted layers. Third is removing unwanted modern materials. And fourth is figuring ways to enhance protection of the artworks. With novel materials that function at the nanoscale, workers hope to penetrate the polymer networks that underlie artworks, remove the blemishes of degradation, and stabilize the remaining structures.

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