Climate protestors were detained in London after dumping soup on Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers.” The demonstrators caused “minimal damage to the frame, but the picture is unscathed,” according to the gallery.
The protest organization “Just Stop Oil” has conducted a series of high-profile actions in order to halt UK government authorisation for exploring, developing, and producing fossil fuels. The Metropolitan Police (Met) claimed two protesters from the organization were detained for criminal damage and aggravated trespass after they “threw a substance over a picture” at the Trafalgar Square gallery and attached themselves to a wall just after 11 a.m. (10 a.m. GMT).
Police stated they had unglued the demonstrators and transported them to a police station in central London. The two demonstrators “appeared to adhere themselves to the wall close to Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers,'” according to the National Gallery, and hurled a “red substance” at the artwork. The room was emptied of people, and police were contacted, according to the report.
A video uploaded on Twitter by the Guardian’s environment journalist Damien Gayle and reposted by the eco-activist organization shows two ladies wearing T-shirts with the phrase “Just Stop Oil” throwing soup cans at the famed mural. After affixing themselves to the wall, one of the activists exclaims, “What is more valuable, art or life?” “Are you more worried about protecting an artwork or protecting our earth and people?” she inquires.
Someone can be heard exclaiming “oh my God!” when the soup strikes the canvas, and another person screams “Security!” as soup falls from the frame onto the floor in the video.
According to a statement from Just Stop Oil, its activists tossed two cans of Heinz Tomato soup over the artwork to demand that the UK government cancel all new oil and gas projects. The protest’s message, it subsequently tweeted, was “Choose life above art.”
“Human innovation and intelligence are on display in this gallery,” the group claimed, “but our heritage is being destroyed by our government’s inability to act on the climate and cost of living crises.”
According to the advocacy organization, the artwork is worth $84.2 million. According to the National Institution’s website, the signed picture from 1888 was purchased by the gallery in 1924. Van Gogh painted seven versions of “Sunflowers,” five of which are on exhibit in museums and galleries across the world.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, for example, said it was keeping a “close eye on developments” that may influence its own security procedures. The incident was criticized by well-known Dutch “art detective” Arthur Brand, called the “Indiana Jones of the Art World” for rescuing important artworks. “There are hundreds of methods to draw attention to climate issues. This should not be among them “He stated. The incident comes a week after British Home Secretary Suella Braverman threatened direct-action climate protestors, accusing them of deploying “guerrilla methods” to cause “chaos and suffering” in the public sphere.