To protest the government's climate policies, two British climate activists glued their hands to the frame of a Vincent van Gogh painting in a London gallery on Thursday. Louis McKechnie and Emily Brocklebank are supporters of the activist group "Just Stop Oil," which uses publicity stunts to draw attention to climate change. McKechnie, 21, and Brocklebank, 24, were glued to Van Gogh's 1889 painting "Peach Trees in Blossom," which hangs in London's Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House.
McKechnie urged the art world to be more proactive in combating climate change in a statement posted on Just Stop Oil's website. "Arts directors should be urging the government to halt all new oil and gas projects immediately," he said. "Either we are resisting or we are complicit." The Courtauld Gallery said it would be closed until the end of Thursday and would reopen to the public "as usual" on Friday. Just Stop Oil posted video of police responding to climate activists online.
"Art receives this protection and state concern." While people in Ethiopia, Somalia, India, Pakistan, the United States, and Australia (to name a few) are being ignored and abandoned as a result of climate change," the group wrote. "Which is more important?" This piece of art? Or even a future"?!
In late May, another climate activist threw a piece of cake at Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Selena Mattei
