Activists from Just Stop Oil doused two paintings of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London with soup on Friday, just after the sentencing of two activists to prison for similar acts, the environmental group said on Friday. x.
“The paintings have been removed, they are being examined by the curator, and are not damaged,” the museum said in a press release sent to AFP.
Shortly after 2:30 p.m. the two activists opened containers containing soup and threw it at two of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, one from 1888, already targeted at the National Gallery the previous time, and the other from 1889, on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, before unveiling their “Just Stop Oil” t-shirts, we can see in a video posted on social networks.
This action was organized as a “sign of defiance” after the sentencing of Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, to two years and 20 months in prison by British justice on Friday morning, explains Just Stop Oil.
On October 14, 2022, these two activists doused the 1888 painting “Sunflowers” with soup before sticking their hands on the wall of the museum, a spectacular and highly publicized action to demand an immediate halt to any new oil or gas projects. in the United Kingdom. She had only very slightly damaged the frame surrounding the 1888 work, protected by glass.
“People are imprisoned for demanding that oil or gas projects be stopped. Future generations will recognize that these prisoners of conscience were on the right side of history,” said activist Phil Green, 24, after throwing the soup on these works on Friday. The group is calling for an end to fossil fuels by 2030 in the UK.
Since mid-September, the National Gallery has been organizing an exhibition dedicated to the famous Dutch painter, “Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers”, which closed its doors after the action.
The two activists sentenced Friday by the Southwark court in London should “serve at least half of their sentence in detention”, underlined Just Stop Oil, of which “25 sympathizers are currently in prison”.
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