The Frieze art fair may be in full swing right now in London but, on Friday, the British capital’s attention was on the National Gallery, where climate activists staged a protest that appeared to threaten a Vincent van Gogh painting.
The activists, who are part of the climate change–focused group Just Stop Oil, threw tomato soup on van Gogh’s Sunflowers, an important example of the Post-Impressionist’s style and one of the National Gallery’s many treasures. Then the activists glued themselves to the wall under the painting.
The gesture is one that Just Stop Oil has regularly done in the U.K., where its young members have repeatedly sought to push the government to respond more quickly to the destruction of the natural environment. Their tactics have often involved gluing themselves to artworks, usually without any damage to the pieces themselves, and their protests have inspired similar ones in Italy and Australia.
Shortly after the protest, the National Gallery said the van Gogh painting had not been hurt, although its frame had sustained “minor damage.”
The museum said that two people had been arrested after the protest.
In video of the protest that was posted by Just Stop Oil on Twitter, two activists open what appears to be a Heinz soup can and toss what’s contained within onto the canvas. They then spread glue across their hands and place them to the wall.
“Human creativity and brilliance is on show in this gallery, yet our heritage is being destroyed by our Government’s failure to act on the climate and cost of living crisis,” the group wrote on Twitter.
The gesture proved divisive, with many in the art world—and beyond—decrying the protest for a spread of reasons.
Alex Needham, arts editor at the Guardian, wrote on Twitter, “I don’t think doing this in a public institution is that smart. We all own that painting.”
Art historian Ruth Millington said, “Attacking Van Gogh’s Sunflowers — one of the world’s most loved paintings — will not gain public support, which is what is needed for real change.”
Others spoke dramatically of the protest’s potential impact. Andrew Doyle, a political comedian who supported Brexit and regularly critiques political correctness, said the protest “represents a repudiation of civilisation and the achievements of humanity.”
Still others raised the possibility that van Gogh was not the right artist to target. “I’m struggling to understand why destroying a painting of sunflowers done by Van Gogh, an impoverished man who was marginalised in his local community due to his mental illness, is the right target to make a statement about how awful the oil industry is,” wrote a Twitter user named Ellen Walker, whose tweet garnered nearly 3,000 likes.
And then there were yet other users who took the opportunity to turn the protest into a meme, comparing the event to the pop star Katy Perry being splashed with slime and sardonically asking what van Gogh did to hurt the climate.