A pair of environmental protesters made a spectacle of themselves by throwing soup on a priceless work of art and gluing themselves to the museum wall, and multiple media outlets sent the exact wrong message by rewarding their ecoterrorism.
The protesters, who identified themselves as with a group called “Just Stop Oil,” threw two cans of Heinz tomato soup on Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and then glued their hands to the wall at London’s National Gallery Friday. The painting is from the second series of sunflower still-lifes the Dutch artist created in 1888 featuring the cheerful yellow flowers. It’s among his most famous and beloved works and has an estimated value of $84.2 million.
Monetary calculations aside, the value of such a historic piece of art is truly priceless, and fortunately the painting was behind plexiglass. “There is some minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed,” according to a National Gallery spokesperson.
Both protesters were arrested for criminal damage and aggravated trespass, London’s Metropolitan Police announced in a tweet, adding that “[o]fficers are now de-bonding them,” presumably referring to the glue.
A subsequent tweet offered an update that the protesters had been “un-glued” and taken into custody, as well as confirming minor damage to the frame but the painting itself remaining unharmed.
Media coverage of this event needlessly amplified the protesters’ demands, with multiple
The Independent’s report on this story was a representative example of this irresponsible coverage, not just quoting the protesters and their organization’s statement extensively, but also listing their names and putting one of the protester’s quotes in the subheading of the article. The New York Post committed similar sins in their coverage, as did Sky News.
Even The Art Newspaper, a publication that covers the international art world and presumably would be on the side of preserving priceless artwork, quoted a long section from Just Stop Oil’s statement and mentioned previous protests where their activists had glued themselves to other works of art.
CNN’s coverage was much better, with only one paragraph including a brief mention of Just Stop Oil’s statement about timing the protest with a new round of oil and gas licensing in the UK. Likewise, Huffington Post did not overly amplify the protesters’ messages and also reported on the criticism the group has received.
To be clear, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the environmental cause here — I had a very entertaining kerfuffle this summer with Fox News’ Mark Levin after I fact-checked his misrepresentations about greenhouse gases — but this was an act of protest that sought to cause harm to parties completely unrelated
There has been a lot of discussion about media ethics in the wake of mass shootings and other violent crimes by unhinged people, with the general consensus being that it is irresponsible to amplify the name and photos of the killers or to print their manifestos. That’s the reason that in my coverage of the Parkland jury verdict yesterday (see here, here, and here), I deliberately omitted the killer’s name from the headlines, used his name only once within the article text for identification, and chose featured images that did not show him, but instead showed the victims’ families.
Obviously, attempting to vandalize a painting is less heinous than committing an act of violence against another person, but it’s not hard to see parallels in the motivations. Rewarding these protesters by publicizing and amplifying their messages presents a very real risk of incentivizing more of this kind of protest.
The painting itself was thankfully unharmed this time, but the frame itself has historic value, and the media attention garnered by this stunt makes it more likely that another precious artwork may find itself covered in soup or paint. Even worse, it’s not inconceivable that the protesters may eventually decide they need to up the ante to continue to get attention and attack a painting that isn’t protected by plexiglass, causing real and irreparable damage.
Museums allow the people of the world to experience priceless