At around 11 am on Friday, October 14, activists from Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh's painting Sunflowers, housed in the National Gallery in London. A spokesperson for the gallery said that there was minor damage to the frame, but that the painting was left unharmed, protected by a glass screen. Both campaigners have been arrested.
Just Stop Oil activists have been staging sit-down protests on the streets of central London for the past few weeks, stopping traffic and gathering attention with slogans and posters. Their activity has also been previously directed at paintings and artworks, although this might be the most drastic measure taken by the group up to date. Their simple demand is that "The UK government makes a statement that it will immediately halt all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK."
Related: Why Activists Are Glueing Themselves to Art
The group added in a statement that "Today’s action comes after two weeks of continued civil resistance by supporters of Just Stop Oil. The disruption is in response to the government’s inaction on both the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis.”
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The drastic measure follows similar actions across the UK, which began on June 29 when two protestors glued themselves to a 19th-century painting by Horatio McCulloch at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow. Throughout the summer, activists continued glueing themselves to paintings, including artworks by William Turner and Giampietrino. Van Gogh had already been subject to the protests with his Peach Trees in Blossom at London's Courtauld Gallery. Most surprisingly, the National Gallery had already been targeted this summer, when protestors from the same group glued themselves to The Hay Wain by John Constable – raising some questions over the Gallery's ultimate safety protocols.
Related: The Dramatic Events Surrounding Van Gogh's Sunflowers
This summer, the Italian eco-activist group Ultima Generazione also took inspiration from the surge of actions in the UK, glueing themselves to the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, the Laocoön and his Sons sculpture in the Vatican Museums, Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera in the Uffizi, and a sculpture by the Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni in Milan.
