Art professionals condemn climate activists’ vandalism of paintings

Art professionals worldwide have hit out at recent acts of vandalism on famous paintings by climate protesters as “counterproductive” and dangerous.

The AFP (Agence France-Presse) have reached out to several museums regarding these incidents, including the Louvre, the National Gallery and the Tate in London. These museums have remained muted, however.

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague released a statement condemning the attacks.

“Art is defenseless, and we strongly condemn trying to damage it for whichever cause.”

Climate activists have been targeting high end businesses and art galleries, largely for action on climate change and to end oil.

It was in the Mauritshuis where Johannes Vermeer’s painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring” was targeted by activists.

Activists have also thrown tomato soup Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London and threw mashed potato over a Claude Monet painting at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, Germany.

The activists were steadfast in their belief that their actions were justified.

They uploaded a video to social media, writing: “If it takes a painting — with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it — to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you#MashedPotatoes on a painting!”

Bernard Blistene, who is honorary president of the modern art Centre Pompidou in Paris, said all museum managers have been putting in safeguard vandalism for some time now.

“Should we take more? No doubt,” Blistene said.

Ortrud Westheider, who is the director of the Barberini Museum, said these attacks highlighted the fact that “international security standards for the protection of artworks in case of activist attacks are not sufficient.”

Remigiusz Plath, who is head of security for the German museum’s association DMB and the Hasso Plattner Foundation, said the recent flurry of attacks was “clearly a kind of escalation process.”

“There are different ways of reacting and of course all museums have to think about extended security measures — measures that were previously very unusual for museums in Germany and in Europe, that were perhaps only known in the US,” he said.

Plath hinted at more thorough security searches along with a possible outright ban on jackets and bags.

Plath said whilst he sympathized with the need to address climate change, he said that vandalism is not acceptable.

“The environmental catastrophe and the climate crisis are of course also a matter of concern to us. … But we have absolutely no tolerance for vandalism,” he said.

Climate change activists have also targeted a Rolex shop, Harrods in London, and a luxury car dealership in London.