Climate activists have been using different methods to raise awareness, like throwing soup at the Mona Lisa painting on Sunday. For centuries, the artwork has remained one of the national treasures of the world, and it is worth noting to say that it has survived many attacks in the past and has survived this one as well.
Art vandalism is as old as time, but with the increasing number of resistance movements and protests, the subject has become a scheme in which activists gain the attention of the media to air their advocacies.
Mona Lisa Painting Attack Allegedly Financed By Director Adam McKay
Adam McKay, the director who helmed Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence’s Netflix satire Don’t Look Up, has been very vocal about his climate activism. Interestingly, with the rising number of protests happening around the world involving art vandalism to shift the focus on climate change, the filmmaker has been accused of funding the group behind these art attacks, as per Hollywood in Toto.
In 2022, McKay donated $4 million to the Climate Emergency Fund and even joined its board of directors. He said in a statement via Deadline:
“The Climate Emergency Fund is unique in their commitment to funding, civil, non-violent, disruptive activism. We are past time for politeness, past time for baby steps. I am proud to support their efforts and call on others to join me in doing everything we can to stave off the rapidly worsening impact of the climate crisis.”
Don’t Look Up was a recipient of four Oscar nominations. The film was a nudge to the public’s ignorance of climate change, the people’s obsession with trendy technologies, and the drama of the political world.
The latest attack on a beloved work of art happened at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The environmental group Riposte Alimentaire or Food Response flung soup at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting. Thankfully, it has a protective barrier that prevents the liquid from damaging the canvas.
One of them said in a video courtesy of CNN: “What is more important: art or the right to a healthy and sustainable diet?” The area was immediately evacuated after the incident. The museum released a statement:
“Two activists from the environmental movement ‘Riposte Alimentaire’ sprayed pumpkin soup on the armoured glass protecting the Mona Lisa, this Sunday, January 28, 2024, around 10am (4am ET). The Louvre’s security staff immediately intervened.”
It was reported that the Riposte Alimentaire seeks to draw attention to the unsustainable food production in France.
More Art Vandalism Is Bound To Happen
Another protest occurred in 2022 when two young activists from Just Stop Oil hurled Heinz tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London, as per NCF Catalyst. In a post from The Guardian, the stunt was reportedly funded by the Climate Emergency Fund, an organization encouraging “dramatic forms of protest in an attempt to spur action on the climate crisis.”
Executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund Margaret Klein Salamon warned that this was not the last act of protest from them:
“More protests are coming, this is a rapidly growing movement, and the next two weeks will be, I hope, the most intense period of climate action to date, so buckle up.”
The attack on the Mona Lisa and Sunflowers paintings have both evoked applause and criticism, and while the likes of Adam McKay and other activists continue funding the organization, art vandalism will continue to happen.
Don’t Look Up is available to stream via Netflix.
