Climate protesters pelt $110M Claude Monet painting with mashed potatoes
A Claude Monet painting was smashed with mashed potatoes Sunday by climate protesters in Germany.
The protesters were demonstrating against the extraction and use of fossil fuels when they targeted the French artist’s famed “Les Meules” at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam and glued themselves to a wall beneath it.
The group Last Generation took credit for the ambush of the artwork, which sold for more than $110 million in 2019.
“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!” Last Generation tweeted Sunday.
The stunt didn’t damage the painting because it was enclosed in glass, the Barberini Museum said Sunday.
“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,” said the museum’s director, Ortrud Westheider.
Museum officials plan to reinstate “Les Meules” for public viewing by Wednesday.
It’s unclear if any arrests were made, but the German dpa news agency reports that police were notified of the incident and that four people played a role in it.
Sunday’s protest comes a little over a week after demonstrators with a different climate activism group — the British-based Just Stop Oil — pelted Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” with tomato soup. That painting, which was displayed at London’s National Gallery, also was enclosed in glass and was not damaged.
Two people were arrested for the “Sunflowers” incident on suspicion of criminal damage and of aggravated trespass.
The Paris-born Monet was born in 1840 and died in 1926. He’s considered among the most influential artists in history.
With News Wire Services
