Why climate activists are gluing themself to paintings

A work of art by Horatio McCulloch in Glasgow, a landscape by Turner conserved in Manchester, a painting by Constable in the National Gallery, a copy by Da Vinci, a painting by Vincent Van Gogh in the Courtauld Gallery in London, and finally a work by Horatio McCulloch in Glasgow. You may have already heard in recent months about Just Stop Oil, a group of climate activists known to the media for the unusual protest tactics they have adopted, such as storming the British Grand Prix track, blocking entrances to oil installations, and disrupting football matches by tying themselves to goal posts. Attaching themselves with glue to some of the frames of the most famous and expensive works of art in history is the latest in a long series of initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the climate emergency. "The youth of the world literally have nothing left to lose, we are a sacrificed generation," Paul Bell, a 21-year-old physics graduate from Birmingham and one of the two young men who voluntarily attached themselves to the frame of Thomson's Aeolian Harp, an 1809 landscape showing a view of the Thames, told The Guardian.

In the case of the action at the Nationwide Gallery, the protesters even covered the canvas with scotch tape and sheets of paper The Hay Wain by John Constable before gluing their arms to the body in protest against Britain's oil and petrol initiatives, according to experts doing irreparable damage to the work itself. The group stated that the imagery they used to revisit the priceless 1821 work reveals a "nightmarish scene showing how oil will destroy our countryside". No one can dispute that actions like these generate publicity and get people talking about climate change, but why art? Back in May the Mona Lisa was daubed by a French activist while shouting like an obsessive "all artists tell you: think of the Earth! All artists think of the Earth! That's why I did this! Think of the planet!". Again Paul Bell, this time at Dazed, tried to answer the question: «I did this in support of the Just Stop Oil coalition: No New Oil. No new licences and permissions for fossil fuel production, development and exploration in the UK. This demand is not difficult to implement - it only requires the government to make a statement and commit to it - but it is desperately needed because our future is rapidly becoming unlivable and the arts establishment is complicit in genocide. The directors of arts institutions should demand that the government immediately stop all new oil and gas projects».

Certainly if the aim was to be the focus of public attention, it was achieved. A source in the organisation suggested that protests in art galleries were a way to keep attention on the group's cause before further actions in the coming weeks, such as a mass protest in London on the 27th in collaboration with Jeremy Corbyn's Peace and Justice project. Certainly, the operators of the galleries of the Galleries of England cannot let their guard down just yet.