Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022

Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022

Climate activists have thrown tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent van Gogh, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022.

Three supporters of Just Stop Oil walked into the National Gallery in London, where an exhibition of Van Gogh’s collected works is on display, at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, and threw Heinz soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888.

The latter was the same work targeted by Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in 2022. That pair are now among 25 supporters of Just Stop Oil in jail for climate protests.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    78·
    2 months ago

    Slapping oil CEOs in the face would be much more relevant, and not be targeting irreplaceable cultural artifacts.

    • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      102·
      2 months ago

      irreplaceable cultural artifacts

      I mean it won’t be exactly the same, but I’m pretty sure they can buy more of that plexiglass that got soup’d. Calling plexiglass a cultural artifact feels like a bit of a stretch, but I do think it’s replaceable.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        37·
        2 months ago

        Just so we’re on the same page here, would this act have been acceptable to you or unacceptable if the painting had actually been damaged?

        Frame of paintings like that isn’t simply replaceable, by the way, it’s also an artifact that’s generations old. It’s just less important than the painting itself.

        • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          31·
          2 months ago

          Depends on your definition of ‘damage’ - if a drop of soup gets under the plexiglass, I’m not clutching any pearls. If the paintings were completely destroyed, I would not be supportive.

          That said its a moot point because these headline grabbing demonstrations have been nondestructive. Stonehenge is fine. The sunflowers will continue to be sunflowery.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            27·
            2 months ago

            Depends on your definition of ‘damage’ - if a drop of soup gets under the plexiglass, I’m not clutching any pearls.

            I would, personally, but history, human heritage, and art are all precious topics to me. You don’t damage 100+ years of history by an artist so groundbreaking that he is a household name to this day just to get your name in the papers.

            If the paintings were completely destroyed, I would not be supportive.

            So your primary reason for remaining supportive of this is that the security systems worked perfectly. You do not approve of destroying priceless artifacts to raise attention to climate change and/or think that it would be counterproductive, also correct?

            • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              21·
              2 months ago

              You don’t damage 100+ years of history by an artist so groundbreaking that he is a household name to this day just to get your name in the papers.

              They didn’t.

    • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      42·
      2 months ago

      Slapping a CEO in the face is assault. That’s a serious offense in most countries, and it would be extremely easy to get sent to jail for years.

      Throwing soup at a painting that’s behind Plexiglas is, at most, disturbing the peace and vandalizing a museum’s floor.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        2 months ago

        Assault on an oil exec… I don’t see anything morally wrong here. It’s also straight to the point, rather than attacking art.