The ongoing trend of climate activists desecrating priceless works of art continued in Germany when a pair of young protesters doused a Monet painting in mashed potatoes.
The incident occurred on Sunday at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany, when two members of the group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) doused Claude Monet’s “Les Meules” painting in mashed potatoes before gluing themselves to the wall. The 130-year-old painting is reportedly worth $111 million.
“If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting!” Letzte Generation tweeted Sunday while sharing a video of the incident.
We make this #Monet the stage and the public the audience.
If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all:
Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting! pic.twitter.com/HBeZL69QTZ
— Letzte Generation (@AufstandLastGen) October 23, 2022
“People are starving, people are freezing, people are dying. We are in a climate catastrophe,” the woman protester, Mirjam Herrmann, yelled at those present, according to Der Tagesspiegel.
“Science says we won’t be able to feed our families by 2050,” Hermann shouted. “This painting will be worth nothing if we have to fight over food.”
Fortunately, the painting sustained no permanent damage and a museum official told Der Tagesspiegel that the activists were unsealed from the wall relatively quickly.
“While I understand the activists’ urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands,” museum director Ortrud Westheider said.
Brandenburg Green Party Leader Ursula Nonnemacher even condemned the protest on Twitter. “The fight against the climate crisis is not strengthened by attacks on famous paintings. On the contrary, we need broad social consensus,” she tweeted.
Der Kampf gegen die Klimakrise wird durch Attackenq auf berühmte Gemälde nicht gestärkt. Im Gegenteil, wir brauchen den breiten gesellschaftlichen Konsens #Barberini
— Ursula Nonnemacher (@UNonnemacher) October 23, 2022
The protest follows a similar incident in London, England, where two climate extremists from “Just Stop Oil” doused Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in tomato soup. The painting, valued at $85 million, also sustained no permanent damage.
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