Activists dump paint on sculpture in Paris
Paris: Environmental activists dumped orange paint over an outdoor sculpture by the American artist Charles Ray in central Paris, the latest in a string of artwork defacements aimed at spurring greater government efforts to fight climate change.
The life-size “Horse and Rider” stands in front of the Bourse de Commerce contemporary art museum, which houses part of the collection of French fashion billionaire Francois Pinault.
The action was claimed by Derniere Renovation (Last Renewal), which showed two activists kneeling and holding hands in front of the doused sculpture on its website.
They had also put a white T-shift over the rider with the phrase “We have 858 days left”, apparently a reference to studies that say carbon emissions must peak by 2025 if the planet is to have a viable future.
“Eco-vandalism is taken up a notch,” Culture Minister Rima Abdel Malak, who visited the site as workers cleaned up the paint, wrote on Twitter.
“Art and ecology are not incompatible. It’s the opposite, they are common causes,” she said.
The incident came as climate activists targeted an Andy Warhol work in Milan on Friday, covering a car repainted by the American pop artist with flour – two weeks after the same group threw pea soup at a Van Gogh painting in Rome.
It was at the third time this month that activists from the group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) have targeted art exhibitions.
On Nov 4, protesters hurled soup over a Van Gogh work in Rome and on Nov 15, they threw a black liquid on a Gustav Klimt painting in Vienna.
Both masterpieces were protected by glass screens and unharmed.
The BMW Art Car looked as if it had been covered by a dusting of snow after Friday’s attack.
Warhol painted it in 1979, the same year as it took part in the 24-hour race at Le Mans in France, before being taken off the road and placed in a museum.
Ultima Generazione’s highprofile stunts to push for tougher action to tackle global warming have coincided with climate talks in Egypt.
The COP27 climate change conference is scheduled to finish on Friday, but it is expected to run into overtime as delegates from nearly 200 countries struggle to agree on a way forward.