Seen and photographed by millions of people a year, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa may be one of the most beloved artworks in the world. Until now, however, the painting has been vandalised or stolen six times in total! What makes the Mona Lisa a threat? Why do activists vandalise museums and not more giant corporations? Why do climate activists use canned soup to criticise food scarcity, sustainability and climate change?
On Saturday, January 27th 2024, two environmental protesters threw soup at the glass-protected Mona Lisa in France, calling for the right to "healthy and sustainable food" by questioning, "What is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food?". Is it counterproductive to vandalise artworks in public museums, though? When two other activists sloshed orange paint over the life-size sculpture Horse and Rider (2014) in 2022 in front of Bource De Commerce, I empathised more because it was a private museum owned by the billionaire Francois Pinault. Not that I encourage any vandalism to art, but that made more sense. But let's return to Mona Lisa, the 16th-century painting by Leonardo da Vinci, one of the world's most famous artworks. It is held at the Louvre in central Paris, with protected glass and wooden barriers facing the painting. This attack on this particular work isn't the first time or second, but the sixth! In 2022, an activist threw cake at the painting, urging people to "think of the Earth". In 1956 alone, two vandals tried to use a razor blade and a rock to defile it on separate occasions. Luckily, the Mona Lisa emerged without damage - almost like a cat with nine lives. Let's remember when it was stolen in 1911, causing an international sensation. Vincenzo Peruggia, an employee of the world's most visited museum, hid in a cupboard overnight to take the painting. It was recovered two years later when he tried to sell it to an antique dealer in Florence, Italy. But the Mona Lisa isn't the only artwork that has been attacked.
On October 14th 2022, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland walked into the National Gallery in London, opened a can of tomato soup, and splattered it across glass protecting Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1889). The gesture, planned by the activist group Just Stop Oil, was a call to arms against the fossil fuel industry. The National Gallery cleaned and rehung Sunflowers within six hours, and the climate activists deliberately targeted the work's protective glass and frame. Materially, this doesn't constitute an attack on the artwork; both gestures are political performances that operate primarily within the symbolic sphere. The action immediately went viral. On November 8th 2022, two other climate activists in the National Gallery of Australia scribbled blue ink and tried to glue their hands to a series of Andy Warhol Campbell soup prints. These activist movements are growing and spreading in prominent museums worldwide thanks to social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and X.
But why art institutions? Some climate activists (or climate-aware non-activists) fear alienating the non-activist public with acts of civil disobedience. They prefer to maintain an institutionally sanctioned and law-abiding public face. This is also less risky, or until now it has been. By hijacking the attention of these artworks, the activists' gestures trigger public conversations around fossil fuels and climate that would not have happened otherwise, redirecting attention where it is badly needed. Is there a counter-productive way of doing this, though, especially in the social-political climate where there are more and more cuts in the arts, education and public funding? I don't know… It makes me think. These are the questions the protesters want us to constantly ask: should and will governments grant new licenses to extract fossil fuels? Will governments meet decarbonisation targets? Will they set timelines that avoid or mitigate life-threatening environmental effects? All governmental actions taken to date have been far too modest. Immediate and radical change is necessary. What are your thoughts?
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