Climate Activists Throw Black ‘Oil’ At Gustav Klimt’s ‘Death And Life’—Here Are All The Recent Protests Targeting Museums

Activists from the climate protest group Letzte Generation poured what they described as oil all over Klimt’s painting at the Leopold Museum, saying in a statement the move was meant to show how “new oil and gas wells are a death sentence for humanity” (the museum said in a statement that neither the painting or the original frame was damaged thanks to a layer of glass protecting the work).

Spanish climate activists from the group Futuro Vegetal poured red and brown slime—which they said represented blood and oil—from plastic Coca-Cola bottles onto the case of a replica mummy at the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona over the weekend, holding a banner that read “COPca-Cola,” meant to argue the COP27 climate summit in Egypt is hypocritical for accepting a sponsorship from the world’s leading plastics polluter (the museum strongly condemned the act).

Two climate activists part of the Norwegian climate activist group Stopp Oljeltinga (Stop Oil Exploration) attempted to glue their hands to the frame of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” on Friday, Nov. 11, at the National Museum of Norway in Oslo, saying their intention was to “pressure lawmakers into stopping oil exploration.” (Museum officials said the painting was not damanged).

The previous week, two protesters, who are part of an activist organization Extinction Rebellion, glued their hands to Francisco Goya’s “The Naked Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”, writing on the wall of Madrid’s Prado Museum “1.5 [degrees Celsius]

,” a reference to the monumental goal laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement of curbing global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century—museum officials condemned the protest and said it caused “slight blemishes” to the frames but no damage to the paintings themselves.

They’re the latest iconic paintings targeted in recent climate protests, starting with Leonardo da Vinci’s infamous “Mona Lisa,” which a climate change protester smeared with cake in March before being tackled by security at Paris’ Louvre museum and arrested, reportedly yelling “there are people who are destroying the planet,” according to a translation by The Art Newspaper.

In July, protesters glued their hands to 15th century Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli’s “Primavera” in Florence, Italy, calling the pro a “new season of actions.”

Two activists were arrested after they doused Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” (1887) in tomato soup on October 17, while gluing their hands to the wall beneath it, causing no damage to the painting but renewing widespread criticism that the protest, with posts on Twitter calling it “repugnant” and “beyond stupid.”

On October 23, German climate activists threw mashed potatoes at Claude Monet’s $110 million painting “Mueles” (1890)—museum officials said the painting was not damaged, while the two activists with the climate activism organization Letzte Generation were taken to jail, the group announced.

Four days later, three activists were arrested at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, in the Netherlands, when a man wearing a “Just Stop Oil” T-t-shirt attempted to glue his hand to 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s iconic “Girl With A Pearl Earring” while another poured tomato soup on the painting.

Earlier in November, four activists with the group Ultima Generazione threw pea soup at van Gogh’s 1888 painting “The Sower” at the Palazzo Bonaparte museum in Rome, and while museum officials said the painting’s glass screen protected it from any damages, Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano condemned it, saying culture shouldn’t be “used as a megaphone for other forms of protest.”