Some climate change activists use the spectacle of throwing food at art works to draw attention to their values and what they feel will undermine them. The downside of this kind of protest is that some people consider it vandalism, which could alienate supporters from a cause.
In a recent article by The Conversation, Oli Mould speculates on the connection between climate change activists and the art world. Mould says ‘Corporations plough money into art institutions and art pieces themselves because it buys them validity in the eyes of the public. Art becomes a shield for their more nefarious planet-destroying practices.’
Recently, ‘Just Stop Oil’ members threw two cans of what appeared to be Heinz Tomato Soup (a reference to Andy Warhol’s 1960s print media work provoking ideas about consumer culture and mass media?) at Vincent van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers at the National Gallery, London. The painting was on display behind glass and the gallery stated it was unharmed.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe protestors proceeded to glue their hands to the wall and stated ‘What is worth more? Art or Life? Is it worth more than food, more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of painting, or the protection of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup. Meanwhile, crops are failing, millions of people are dying in monsoons, wildfires and sever drought. We cannot afford new oil and gas. It is going to take everything we know and love.’
Since this action other members of ‘Just Stop Oil’ have tried to draw attention to their message by stopping traffic on Abbey Road, recreating the famous Beatles album cover, and splashing paint across the shop-front windows of several luxury car dealerships in London including Bugatti, Jack Barclay Bentley, Bentley Motor Cars London and Ferrari Mayfair. In the Royal Academy, London, activists glued themselves to Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
In Australia members of Extinction Rebellion visited the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and glued their hands to the protective coating of Picasso’s painting ‘Massacre in Korea’. They held a banner that read ‘Climate Chaos=War + Famine’. One in the pair shouted ‘Stop Coal. Stop Gas’ while the other added ‘We’d prefer not to be doing this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.’
All of these actions have been broadcast on social media and made the news world-wide.
Perhaps inspired by ‘Just Stop Oil’, a group of activists called Last Generation glued their hands to Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera (encased in glass) and held a banner which said ‘No Gas. No Coal’ in Florence, Italy. Later the group released the statement; ‘Is it possible to see a spring as beautiful as this today? Fires, food crises and drought make it increasingly difficult. We decided to use art to sound an alarm call: we are heading towards social and eco-climate collapse.’
While these recent protests happened overseas, it’s an issue of local concern too. As we reported earlier this year Tim Winton called on the gate-keepers of arts funding Australia-wide to not accept support from the fossil fuel industry. Winton said; “All around us every day financial institutions, super funds, shareholder groups and banks are withdrawing their patronage of the fossil fuel industry, because it’s seen increasingly as a bad bet with looming stranded assets and in their view, it no longer passes the ethics test. So how is it that we in the arts community should show less creativity and moral imagination than bankers?”
Gas company Santos recently opted not to renew their sponsorship of the Darwin Festival which coincided with a campaign by environmentalists and traditional owners opposed to fossil fuels and fracking. The ABC reported that an alternative sponsorship was offered by Fossil Free Arts NT, $200,000 over two years, comprised of funds from philanthropists, one of whom was The McKinnon Family Foundation.
In the past few years, the Biennale of Sydney, Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Adelaide Biennial and 4th Indigenous Triennial, presented by the National Gallery of Australia have made efforts to drop sponsorship from the fossil fuel industry. And back in the UK, both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Portrait Gallery London have stopped BP sponsorship.
Protests in art spaces are not limited to negating the sponsorship of the fossil fuel industry. A new documentary film ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ by artist Nan Goldin chronicles her campaign to get institutions to drop the Sackler family, owners of opioid-manufacturing, in sponsorship and name. In one activist intervention protestors gathered at the Guggenheim in New York for a ‘die-in’ where they dropped hundreds of what looked like prescriptions through the museum as people lay on the floor. Goldin and friends have staged other protests like this, at the Victoria and Albert Musuem in London and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to name a few.
Back to throwing food at art.
Climate change activists from Last Generation threw mash potato at Claude Monet’s painting ‘Les Meules(Haystacks)’, in the Museum Barberini, Potsdam. Again, the painting is unharmed being on display under a layer of protective glass. As the activists glued their hands to the wall one said ‘People are starving. People are freezing. People are dying. We are in a climate catastrophe. And all you are afraid of is tomato soup or mashed potatoes on a painting. You know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid because science tells us that we won’t be able to feed our families in 2050. Does it take mashed potatoes on a painting to make you listen? This painting is not going to be worth anything if we have to fight over food. When will you finally start to listen? When will you finally start to listen and stop business as usual?’
‘Just Stop Oil’ also took their protest to Madame Tussauds London where a sculpture of King Charles III was on display. The activist duo each smacked what could have been a custard pie in the face of the likeness of the King. They announced to the crowd ‘It’s a piece of cake. Just stop oil.’ The speaker went on to say he was inspired by the looming possibility that one-day his grandchildren would ask him, what did you do in the face of climate change, what did you do to stop the destruction? He added, we need action, not just words.
In an interesting development reported by Cara Buckley of the New York Times, organisations like Just Stop Oil receive funding from the Climate Emergency Fund, a fund to which Aileen Getty, the granddaughter of the founder of Getty Oil, has donated $1 million so far. In association with CEF, The Equation Campaign provide financial and legal support to people near pipelines and refineries, this initiative has received a pledge of $30 million over 10 years from Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and Peter Gill Case, John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil.
So, as long as we have a climate in peril it seems for climate change activists there is no such thing as too many cooks in the kitchen. The actions of these activists have made headlines because they are deliberately provocative and divisive, some call the displays juvenile or performative. In an interview with Sky News, singer and activist Bob Geldof conceded that yes the activists’ actions could be seen as annoying, but, he added ‘They’re not killing anyone. Climate change will.’
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