The art of climate protest
Have they gone too far? Are they heroes or hoodlums? They pose as visitors to an art gallery, seeking spiritual uplift from Mondrian’s rectangles or Picasso’s deformities. But all of a sudden, they take off their jackets to reveal T-shirts demanding an end to fossil fuels, fling a jar of something runny over a painting, then glue themselves to the wall or even to the painting itself.
Security detaches them but not before they’ve posted film of the stunt online. What they want is publicity and they get it, because desecrating the altar of high art is so deliciously transgressive.
They’ve thrown mashed potato at a Monet, crude oil at a Klimt, tomato soup at one van Gogh and pea soup at another. (Though when they attacked a Warhol soup painting they merely scrawled on it. I’d like to think that was irony, but I suspect not.)
So far all the paintings they’ve attacked have been protected by glass. Thus, it’s been like throwing an egg at a politician: briefly disfiguring but with no lasting damage.
Understandably, however, that’s not how the museum directors of the world have seen it. In a joint statement they have declared that the protesters ‘‘underestimate the fragility of these irreplaceable objects, which must be preserved as part of our world cultural heritage’’.
Quite why, say, Warhol’s work needs to be preserved I’d be interested to learn, but perhaps that’s a question for another time. ‘‘As museum directors entrusted with the care of these works,’’ the statement continues, ‘‘we have been deeply shaken by their risky endangerment . . . Museums are places where people from a wide variety of backgrounds can engage in dialogue and which therefore enable social discourse.’’
Well now, I’m no expert on the visual arts, but I’ve visited numerous galleries and museums in a bid to understand what the fuss is about and one thing I’ve not seen much of is dialogue. Rather, I’ve seen people quietly gathering in front of paintings and gawping. And the paintings they’ve gawped at most have been the best-known ones, the ones by famous names, the ones whose merit is confirmed by enormous price tags.
And when it comes to the best-known of them all, the paintings that are effectively beyond price, many art lovers turn their backs to them in order to take selfies. The Mona Lisa, for example, is less a painting than a celebrity to be seen with, a Renaissance Harry Styles.
It is this cultural celebrity that the protesters are exploiting. Their argument is that there’s no point preserving a past if you don’t preserve a future. Their argument is that in turning our eyes towards the pretty pictures we are turning them away from an ugly one. Their argument is that when the human species is reduced to a few huddled groups stewing cockroaches, it will be no consolation that their caves are lined with van Goghs. Their argument is that we’ve had decades of warning about climate change and most of us have done nothing. It’s hard to disagree.
So now all action is justified. And they aren’t stopping at art. Recently they stormed an airport in Holland in protest against private jets. ‘‘More protests are coming,’’ says Margaret Klein Salamon of the Climate Emergency Fund, ‘‘so buckle up.’’
How could one not be with them? We face an existential threat, and if this is what it takes to jolt people like me out of our apathy then so be it. But only so long as they don’t go and do anything silly, like letting the tyres down on my petrol-driven car. That would be going too far.