Modern materials Archives - Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material

Plastics

Since their introduction in the 1930s, plastics have been incorporated by artists, designers and manufacturing companies into modern and contemporary cultural heritage. Although cheap, widely available and praised for their elastic qualities, different kinds of polymers have unstable chemical structures that make their deterioration rates unpredictable. The enormous variety of classes of plastics and

Modern materials

Contemporary artists use a variety of unconventional materials in unusual ways. Some use food and other materials that readily decay or change. Some artists may not realise their work faces conservation issues because, for example, the chemical interaction between acrylic paints and surfaces, other artists deliberately defy longevity within their artworks. Contemporary art conservators may