Climate Activists Attack Gustav Klimt Painting With A Slick Of Black Substance
Despite the pleas from the Association of Art Museum Directors for protestors worldwide to stop involving famous art pieces in their campaigns, it appears the movement won’t be going away anytime soon.
Most recently, a pair of climate activists in Austria took to attacking a painting by Gustav Klimt at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which was rather aptly titled Death And Life.
The work, first created in 1910 and reworked from 1912 to 1913 and 1915 to 1916, depicts Death as a figure on the left, and men, women, and children on the right.
Hailing from a collective dubbed the Last Generation, one of the protestors threw a black paint-like substance over the work, looking similar to if an oil splash had taken place against the glass. The other glued himself to the artwork’s frame.
We need immediate measures against #ClimateBreakdown NOW. Lowering the speed limit to 100km/h on highways costs nothing to implement, saves 460 million tons of CO2 per year in #Austria alone and leads to less noise, better air quality and safer roads. What are we waiting for? pic.twitter.com/JQUkr1O4F2
— Letzte Generation Österreich (@letztegenAT) November 15, 2022
“Today, people of Last Generation poured a black, oily liquid on Klimt’s Death And Life in the Leopold Museum—new oil and gas drilling is a death sentence to humanity,” the group tweeted after the incident.
It urged authorities to take immediate measures to stop the climate crisis, suggesting lowering the speed limit on highways, a solution the organization said “costs nothing to implement,” yet saves 460 million tons of carbon emissions annually in Austria alone.
According to CNN, the museum later reported the painting and its original frame were undamaged, though the black “oil” had stained the piece’s glass and safety frame, along with the walls and floor of the museum.
Two weeks ago, anti-oil activists in Belgium that targeted Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring at the Hague’s Mauritshuis Museum were sentenced to jail.
[via CNN and Sky News, cover image via Last Generation]
