Protesters gluing their hands to wall below Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘The Sower’ in the Palazzo Bonaparte.
PROTESTER SAYING:
“We are at a time when prolonged drought, disasters, and floods are destroying our crops. This means that food will be missing from our tables. It is already happening now. You are angry today because we soiled a glass that will be clean tomorrow but your children will have no food left in a few years. We should explode with anger because we risk a future of death, war and hunger. Governments know this and you should be angry about this, not this nonsense. There is glass protecting the painting. If we want to protect art, we have to protect our lives and our future. Ours is not a criticism of art, but we are sending a message. We shouldn’t get angry about a painting that is protected by glass and will be clean tomorrow and we don’t get angry because we don’t know that we are losing food and water. We are talking about life and death. It’s not a game.”
STORY: Italian environmental protesters threw pea soup over a Vincent Van Gogh painting on display in Rome on Friday (November 4) before gluing themselves to the wall of the gallery.
The stunt directed at “The Sower” was carried out by four women from the group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) who shouted slogans against global warming and fossil fuels.
“We shouldn’t get angry about a painting that is protected by glass and will be clean tomorrow and we don’t get angry because we don’t know that we are losing food and water,” one of the protesters said during the protest.
Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano condemned the attack on the painting, which comes after another Van Gogh work was targeted in London by climate change protesters.
“Culture, which is a key part of our identity, should be defended and protected and not used as a megaphone for other forms of protest,” Sangiuliano said in a statement.
Representatives from nearly 200 countries will gather in Egypt next week for the COP27 climate change conference, as pressure for tougher action to tackle global warming grows.
“The Sower” is part of an exhibition at the historic Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome’s city center.
The painting, on loan from the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in the Netherlands, was protected by a glass screen and did not suffer damage, said Camilla Talfani, a spokesperson for the exhibition organizers.
Climate change protesters threw soup over Van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery last month, causing minor damage to the frame. (Reuters)
