(GERMANY) — Climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting at Potsdam’s Barberini Museum Sunday, to protest fossil fuel extraction.
Fortunately, the painting, which is part of Monet’s haystack series, was enclosed in glass so thankfully, it was not damaged.
After throwing the spuds, a female protestor from the group “Last Generation” gave a speech in German alongside a male activist, both wearing orange vests.
After the starchy assault, the two each glued one of their hands to the wall. The group has called on the German government to take drastic action to protect the climate and stop using fossil fuels.
This assault on a priceless artwork is the latest by climate activists to draw attention to global warming. The British group “Just Stop Oil” threw tomato soup at a Vincent Van Gogh painting in London’s National Gallery earlier this month.
The incident follows a string of similar demonstrations by activist groups across Europe.
In London, two climate activists threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery. pic.twitter.com/hC23dNWqol
— Metro (@MetroUK) October 23, 2022
And last spring in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assaulted but unharmed when a visitor to the Louvre dressed as a woman in a wheelchair tried to smash the glass protecting the world’s most famous painting before smearing whipped cream across its surface in an apparent climate-related publicity stunt.
A man who faked a disability to get close to the Mona Lisa in a wheelchair stood up and smeared a pastry on its glass case on Sunday, according to the Louvre museum in Paris. The man, who a witness said had “dressed as an old lady,” was taken into custody.https://t.co/pbRIW7oMkz pic.twitter.com/rFabufaT1Z
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 31, 2022