In a joint statement, representatives from almost 100 galleries across the world, including New York’s Guggenheim Museum, London’s British Museum and Paris’ Louvre Museum, have warned that climate protests are endangering the priceless artworks.
By Adela Suliman
LONDON – From Claude Monet to Andy Warhol, several of the world’s greatest artists have had their masterpieces targeted this year by protesters seeking to draw global attention to the climate change emergency.
Now, art galleries are pushing back.
In a joint statement, representatives from almost 100 galleries across the world, including New York’s Guggenheim Museum, London’s British Museum and Paris’s Louvre Museum, have warned that such climate protests are endangering the priceless artworks.
“In recent weeks, there have been several attacks on works of art in international museum collections. The activists responsible for them severely underestimate the fragility of these irreplaceable objects, which must be preserved as part of our world cultural heritage,” they said.
The group of 92 representatives of the International Council of Museums said museum directors were increasingly “frustrated” and had been “deeply shaken” by the endangerment of the art.
“Museums are places where people from a wide variety of backgrounds can engage in dialogue and which therefore enable social discourse.
“We will continue to advocate for direct access to our cultural heritage. And we will maintain the museum as a free space for social communication.”
The protests in galleries have not caused permanent damage to the iconic pieces, which are mostly encased in protective glass, although some museums have reported minor damage.
The protests have dotted the globe in recent months.
In Australia, climate protesters scrawled blue graffiti on Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can art in Canberra. The climate action group Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies wrote on Twitter: “The art was not damaged,” and urged the Australian government to reduce its carbon emissions.
Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring”, a 17th-century masterpiece, was targeted in the Netherlands last month but is back on display.
In Italy, climate protesters glued themselves to Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli “Primavera” at the Uffizi museum in Florence, while in Germany, protesters from the group Last Generation doused Monet’s “Les Meules” with mashed potatoes as they criticised the government’s fossil fuel extraction.
The groups have made similar arguments to justify their actions. The Uffizi protesters, for instance, said: “If the climate collapses, the entire civilisation as we know it collapses. There will be no more tourism, no museums, no art.”
In response to the co-ordinated statement from museums, a spokesperson for the UK climate action group Just Stop Oil said on Friday that “art and the public gallery is a contested place, it does not exist and cannot exist outside of the wider debate and arguments taking place in society”.
The spokesperson added: “Ending new oil and gas is a demand that needs to be made both inside and outside the gallery.”
Just Stop Oil protesters made global headlines last month when they threw tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery but did not damage the 19th-century painting, estimated to be worth $84.2 million (about R1.5 billion). It was encased in a protective glass.
The high-profile stunts align with other climate protests in recent years that have sought to disrupt daily life in increasingly unexpected ways.
Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who studies protest movements, previously told The Post that such “tactical innovation” and new strategies gained media attention but didn’t always “work to change minds and hearts”.
Some in the public have hailed the protesters as “heroes” and said galleries were “missing the point” by not supporting them. Others, however, have called for increased security at museums and deemed the acts “vandalism”.
A separate body, the US-based Association of Art Museum Directors, last week also issued a statement in response to climate activists’ “attacks” on artworks, stating that the incidents “cannot be justified” regardless of motivation. “Such protests are misdirected, and the ends do not justify the means,” it said.
The rare joint action from museums comes as world leaders, among them President Biden, gather in Egypt at the UN’s annual climate change summit, known as COP27, to discuss solutions to the climate emergency.
Biden requested more than $11 billion to help developing countries adapt to the devastating effects of climate change and build greener economies in his $5.8 trillion budget plan released in March, but it is unclear whether Congress will deliver anywhere near that amount.
Meanwhile, on Friday, a major study warned that nations will probably burn through their remaining carbon budget in the next nine years if they do not significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution – making it all but impossible for nations to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
– THE WASHINGTON POST
