COVID-19 will leave a mark in art?
ARTinvestment.RU   13 мая 2020

This question was asked Francesca Casadio, head of the restoration Department and Sciences the art Institute of Chicago

At the moment the greatest direct impact on the art world, which has had a virus COVID-19, — is widespread closure of museums and exhibition venues. However, this is a temporary phenomenon. But the impact on art of various disinfectants with which the museums and other spaces will be to decontaminate surfaces and air to make them safe for visitors after the lifting of the quarantine can become permanent. And yet museums and other art-институции determine the best methods of disinfection, the restorers are looking for the most economical and safe options to protect art objects and collectibles from the effects of the virus and protect from it.

When the museums will again open their inner space and even the air inside it, of course, much has changed: the staff will wear personal protective equipment, door handles, railings, bathrooms, benches, and other surfaces that are constantly touched by staff and visitors will always be treated with disinfectant.

the Most common ingredients of such funds are bleaching and oxidizing substances, which in contact can cause irreparable damage to many artefacts. But such contact was inevitable, considering how many visitors and employees of the Museum will relate to handled by means of surfaces.

One of the most gentle options are based tools of thymol. Thymol — essential oil, which is contained in many plants of the family and thyme has strong antimicrobial and antiviral effect. The investigation carried out by Francesca Casadio, causing a few drops of this oil on the surface of objects kept in the Museum of the art Institute of Chicago, showed that the negative effects this oil has had. However, this does not mean that it does not leave traces.

This led Casadio thinking about what specialists think of the next generations, when they find on old works of art, traces of thymol as a marker of the era of coronavirus.

a Similar marker of the epoch have been discovered during the study of the painting "the Bedroom" by Vincent van Gogh from the collection of the Museum Institute of Chicago. A few years ago, the Museum specialists took samples of paint from the surface of this work and the study found in it particles of bacteria. Not the ones that now cause disease around the world, but those that were in the air around the artist when he created the work and that when the distribution can affect its safety.

Thus, although we cannot yet predict how today's means of dealing with infection will affect the state of the art in the future, you can be sure that experts of future generations will receive a new token in the composition of the surface layers of works of art to point to its existence in the era of coronavirus.

the Material was prepared by Maria Kuznetsova, AI

reference: artnews.com