This action was led within the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra by a group called “Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies Australia”, which opposes fossil fuel subsidies. A video shared online shows one of the two protesters covering her hand with glue before slapping it on the protection of the canvas “Campbell’s Soup Cream of Mushroom”, acquired by the Australian museum in 2006.
The writing is on the wall! Or the glass at least. #StopFossilFuelSubsidies now! Get the “Picture?!#Warhol exhibition at the Australian National Gallery @NatGalleryAus Canberra#A22Network#ClimateCrisis#ArtProtest#StopFFSubsidies#AusPol2022@GeorgeMonbiot@firstdogonmoonpic.twitter.com/yl99h0DoYo
— Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies (@stopffsubsidies) November 9, 2022
The canvases are not damaged
The two activists also drew graffiti on the protections of the various canvases that make up the work, without damaging them, said the National Gallery. The covers were then removed for cleaning. In a press release, the museum reports this “manifestation” stressing that it occurred “following similar incidents here and abroad”. “The National Gallery does not wish to promote these actions and will not comment further.”
The “danger of capitalism” denounced by activists
Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup” serigraph, made in the 1960s, is one of the most recognizable symbols of the American “pop art” movement. “Warhol took as themes everyday subjects that had resonance because of their familiar origins (…) like the simple can of Campbell’s soup,” the museum wrote in its presentation of the painting.
Climate activists said they chose screen printing to highlight the “danger of capitalism”. “Andy Warhol portrayed consumerism gone mad in his iconic series. And now capitalism has gone mad,” protester Bonnie Cassen said in a statement. “Families today have to choose between (buying) medicine or food for their children, while the oil companies are making record profits.”
Activists want an end to fossil fuel subsidies
Activists have also pointed to the Canberra government’s failures to end taxpayer subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. Analysis published this year by the Institute of Australia, an independent think tank, found that the country paid out more than A$11 billion (€7.1 billion) in fossil fuel subsidies in 2021 and 2022. “Our government needs to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry,” Bonnie Cassen lambasted. “We only have a limited time.”
“Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies Australia” says it is part of a “global civil resistance network”, an informal group of environmental and climate activists who have made headlines in recent weeks by degrading environmental protections. priceless works of art.
Other pro-climate activists have recently stuck their hands on a Goya painting in Madrid, squirted tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London, and smeared mashed potatoes on a Claude Monet masterpiece in Potsdam , near Berlin.
While the paintings remained unscathed, the “Sunflowers” incident resulted in light damage to the frame of Van Gogh’s canvas. In October, two protesters in Australia also stuck their hands on the plexiglass cover of “Massacre in Korea,” made by Picasso and on temporary display in a Melbourne museum.