Two activists arrested after Rokeby Venus artwork targeted, as dozens of others held after blocking Whitehall
Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested after smashing the glass covering a Diego Velázquez painting at the National Gallery in London, as police detained dozens of others who blocked Whitehall.
Two activists targeted the glass on the Rokeby Venus painting with safety hammers before they were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
The artwork, which was painted by Velázquez in the 1600s, was slashed by the suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914. One of those involved on Monday said: “Women did not get the vote by voting; it is time for deeds not words.”
The Metropolitan police said at least 40 activists who were “slow marching” in Whitehall were also detained and that the road was clear after traffic was stopped for a brief period
Drawing a direct line up the suffragettes is genius. History will prove them right
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I don’t understand why they keep targeting art. Wouldn’t smashing car windows (for example!) make more sense?
Throwing paint on buildings owned owned by oil companies make more sense, but it never reach the news.
They have also targeted luxury car dealerships. People said the exact same things they always say when they do anything.
Just because their other attempts at protests failed to make the statement they were aiming for doesn’t make this one any better. If they have a track record of doing stupid shit it’s hardly a testament to their feigned statements.
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They did it. Several times, before to throw paint on art. How many articles did you read about it ?
I’m not sure what you mean by “sure it would”.
Art is an investment rich people use to stay wealthy, I think it’s symbolic. They’re in a ln odd way attacking institutional wealth, which tracks for an organization that calla themselves “Stop Oil.”
I don’t know that this is their take, but it’s my reading on the repeated choice to attack fine art.
As a poor person who loves art in many mediums, this is a pretty bleak and depressing take. Yes some art is that, but there’s a reason people travel from all the world over to see the Sistine Chapel or the Eiffel Tower. There’s a reason poor people feeling like their voice isn’t heard pick up a pen or a brush, or film, or a spray can, etc.
Because art gets them more publicity. Also if they are going around smashing car windows then they are liable to thousands in fines due to criminal damage, turn the general public against them even more so than they already are and it will likely legitimise tough laws being created against this group.
Because art gets them more publicity.
Out of curiosity, how many news articles about them throwing paints on oil company owned building or luxury cars dealership did you shared ?
That would be attacking the public though. Destroying Art is something that is technically accessible to all, but practically only studied and coveted by the wealthy (who have time and financial assets to pursue it)
I’m guessing it’s a class/luxury thing. Cars are mostly owned by workers; smashing them puts the cost on those individual workers.
It kind of makes sense to me for environmental protests, as in “we only have one earth, just like we only have one of this painting”.
I find it funny that oil activists funny just go find a random piece of oil pipeline in the middle of nowhere to sabotage. Seriously, the things stretch for hundreds of miles, there can’t be a shortage of isolated segments behind no more than a chain link fence at most.
Oil leak caused by activists is great PR.
Sort of a joke, given how many oil leaks our infrastructure is already riddled with.
Doing a little light domestic terrorism would be a drop in the bucket beside the enormous amount of waste polluting our groundwater and riverways. But new media would fixate on it as the de facto reason why oil spills exist, for the next twenty years.
Why do they hate oil paintings so much?
Just a misunderstanding. This group is Just Stop Oil (paintings). They hate the medium.
The other group is Just Stop Oil: the anti-oil, coal, and natural gas group.
Same name, so it’s easy to get them confused.
Similar to the movement that’s prominent in small Scottish fishing villages - Just Stop Watercolour
Dudes be like nooo stop trying to hurt the nice paper and go protest somewhere else so we can more easily ignore you
Putting the protection of art above what these people are protesting is both hilarious and also extremely depressing
Said “paper” has a shit ton of historical significance. art can define our culture alter our history and change our perception on things. Art like comedy or forms of media is also subjective what you may find rubbish another person may enjoy. And
in my upmost opinionthis isn’t protesting this is vandalism. I think it’s important that we must not forget history so we can learn from it and not repeat the mistakes of the past. and a large part of not forgetting history is restoring and maintaining pieces of art such as this… not vandalising it for a vague and nonsensical environmental message people like thisand also people like youmuddy the water for true discussion and debate on the environment and other topics relating to itThe fact that you see vandalism and protest as mutually exclusive is really odd. Reminds me of the liberal types who claim they’re all for protesting and yet draw the line at anything past marching or petitioning maybe.
Super great deflection technique by the big oil guys by the way - everyone’s arguing over art in a museum rather than holding them accountable
These people are protesting the loss of the status quo of unchecked rampant overpopulation.
There were 500 million people when that paper was made… 2 billion when the sufragettes slashed it… there are 8 billion now, and how exactly has that improved things?
Do we really want to see what 32 billion people will do to the environment?
“Why would activists pull a stunt that would bring attention to their concerns from the main stream media?”
~ Lemmy Users, Probably
I love how civilization is irrevocably fucked by its own hand and there are still peasants at the ready to scold the desperate still clinging to hope somehow for defacing the apple cart in its race to oblivion.
“Herp derp we just need to keep doing what we’re supposed to do and everything will be fine!”
I mean, if there demands were not made of dreams and pixie dust, maybe I would get behind them. They literally have no plan beyond, “we want all oil to stop and the world to be perfect in eight years.”
There’s no fairy tale where our gluttonous way of life continues undisrupted.
Either we change the way we live and continue to live on a planet worth inhabiting, or more likely we stay the course, and that decision will be made for us through deadly changes to the climate that will take generations to heal if we let it even then.
This isn’t a negotiation. This is physics. Yet humans still believe they can massage the facts into something more palatable.
It’s crazy that they have the right idea about direct action and yet are using it on the worst possible targets.
Disrupting an art museum will not stop pollution or inconvenience the fossil fuel industry.
Take advice from MLK: Be nonviolent, but get in the way. Use methods of coercion.
This is non violent, and is in the way, and is coercion? And it’s exactly the kind of thing that King was criticized for doing.
No. It’s not getting in the way of fossil fuel production. It’s getting in the way of an art museum and coercing them into calling the cops to get them thrown out, achieving nothing useful in the process.
You have to disrupt and coerce the fossil fuel producers
So switch to acryllic paintings? :) Who knew art supply fans were so dogmatic.
What the hell is a “safety hammer”?
A hammer designed to smash glass - it’s a ‘safety hammer’ because they are kept in cars to smash windows in emergencies where people are stuck.
lol nice
So, how is this different from ISIS blowing up ancient artifacts?
