Climate change protests have taken a turn for the bizarre.
At the end of September, a judge in England sentenced two climate activists with the group Just Stop Oil to two years and 20 months in prison respectively.
Their crime? Throwing tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh's famous 1888 Sunflowers in the National Gallery in London.
Wait, what?
The painting itself (estimated value $136 million Canadian) was, of course, covered in glass and undamaged, but according to prosecutors, its 17th-century antique frame suffered damage of up to $15,000.
I don't think long jail terms like this are appropriate for peaceful, symbolic acts of civil disobedience, but the question remains, why target art?
I suppose if you are a person who sees climate change as an immediate existential threat, the reverence we hold for and value we place on these cultural items makes them logical targets.
“Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” Pheobe Plummer asked onlookers after super-gluing her palm to the wall underneath the iconic painting.
Plus, such a brazen act, in such an unexpected context, is bound to attract an insane amount of attention, which it has.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, a lot of support for Plummer and her co-protester Anna Holland has come from the art community. Just before the sentencing, Greenpeace published an open letter signed by dozens of artists (visual and otherwise), museum curators, art historians and academics.
“These activists should not receive custodial sentences for an act that connects entirely to the artistic canon,” the authors wrote, adding the action “will inevitably enrich the story and social meaning of Sunflowers; and will be remembered, discussed and valued in itself as a creative and incisive work.”
Just hours after the sentencing, three more Just Stop Oil activists walked into the National Gallery and covered the same painting and another Van Gogh on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art with Heinz vegetable soup.
Will that action also be remembered and valued as creative and incisive, or will it just be labelled derivative?