Tomato Soup on $84 million Van Gogh painting

jon-nyc · wrote on 14 Oct 2022, 18:08

Bring back debtors prison.

Mik · wrote on 14 Oct 2022, 18:34

I always liked the Russian catchall of hooliganism. You did something everybody knows you're not supposed to do.

George K · wrote on 14 Oct 2022, 20:54

The gallery said earlier the painting was covered by glass and therefore not damaged.

A statement from the Trafalgar Square venue said: "At just after 11am this morning two people entered Room 43 of the National Gallery.

"The pair appeared to glue themselves to the wall adjacent to Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888). They also threw a red substance - what appears to be tomato soup - over the painting.

"The room was cleared of visitors and police were called. Officers are now on the scene.

"There is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed."

LuFins Dad · 15 Oct 2022, 02:27

Let’s pay off $10K of their student loans…

jon-nyc · 15 Oct 2022, 20:06

@LuFins-Dad said in Tomato Soup on $84 million Van Gogh painting:

Let’s pay off $10K of their student loans…

They’re Brits.

Friday · wrote on 15 Oct 2022, 04:33

The T shirts they were wearing should have been a give away.

jon-nyc · wrote on 15 Oct 2022, 17:54

David Frum:

"Well, at least they got people talking about their cause."

Yes - and what the people said when they talked was: "Their cause sure seems to attract mindless, pathological assholes."

That's success?

Copper · wrote on 15 Oct 2022, 20:06

@jon-nyc said in Tomato Soup on $84 million Van Gogh painting:

@LuFins-Dad said in Tomato Soup on $84 million Van Gogh painting:

Let’s pay off $10K of their student loans…

They’re Brits.

Maybe that explains why there were no crackers. I like Saltines or Ritz with my soup.

George K · wrote on 18 Oct 2022, 11:29

In Defense of “Bad” Activism

The stunt was the latest in a series, and apparently “climate protesters across Europe have for months been gluing themselves to the frames of famous paintings.” The Just Stop Oil activists asked onlookers which was more valuable, “art” or “life,” and gave a speech about the cost of living crisis and the destructive effects of fossil fuel use. For context, the U.K. government has recently lifted its ban on fracking and the Conservative climate minister has justified awarding more than 100 licenses for North Sea drilling, saying that fracking and oil drilling are “good for the environment.” (This madness didn’t, of course, get nearly as much attention as the action of the activists.)

Making fun of the activists is the easiest response in the world. I think their choice of tactics didn’t really make much sense. It brings media coverage, sure, but mostly of the “look how silly these activists are” variety, which is not what you’re aiming for. Does it build public support for the movement to end fossil fuel use? Doubtful.

And yet, it’s also important to understand where these young people are coming from. I’d note in their defense that people in their generation are desperate and anxious, because they see their future being stolen from them. They see the climate crisis getting worse, and they are ruled over by an unelected Prime Minister who believes in unfettered free market capitalism. In recent years, the efforts of young left activists in the Labour Party to introduce transformative progressive leadership were undemocratically thwarted by centrists within the party. These climate activists are coming from a place of extreme frustration with the burdens that they know they are going to face in the coming decades. Futile acts like this are the result of a sense of powerlessness.

Some activism is conducted by savvy strategic thinkers who have carefully weighed up the anticipated effect of their actions on public opinion in pursuit of a clear policy goal. But sometimes activism is a cry of anger by those who do not know what else to do except to somehow “throw their body on the gears.” The London activists weren’t the first to deface paintings in the service of a noble cause. The Suffragettes did the same thing. In 1914, Mary Richardson of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) hacked up a Velázquez painting in the National Gallery using a meat cleaver. She was protesting against the jailing of WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst.

Horace · wrote on 18 Oct 2022, 11:47

I spend an unreasonable amount of time listening to and reading leftists communicating with each other. I would characterize all of it as emotional people talking about their emotions, emotionally, in an effort to imagine a world in which all those emotions, which have largely been a source of pain for them through their lives (that is the purpose of emotions, at first approximation), are what makes them special, and better than others.