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Original poster

National gallery vandalism

93 replies

Winterthoughts · 14/10/2022 12:24

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/14/just-stop-oil-activists-throw-soup-at-van-goghs-sunflowers

Am I being unreasonable in being really angry at over grown children crapping on our shared history and cultural achievements, and the creation of one if the most famous works out art,from a tortured soul who still could express himself like this.

I genuinely think they'll turn more people off their cause than get them on board.

OP posts:
FannyCann · 14/10/2022 16:51

I'd have thought at the very least it would dribble down into the frame and damage the frame and lower (concealed) edge of the painting @MimosaSunrise

ThatGirlInACountrySong · 14/10/2022 16:53

Idiots!

SuperCamp · 14/10/2022 17:02

Utterly stupid damage and destruction.
Not relevant to their cause.
I hope they get treated as the criminal vandals they are.

SwordToFlamethrower · 14/10/2022 17:18

The painting was unharmed. There is nothing to be angry about.

jetadore · 14/10/2022 17:18

Worse things happen at sea.

Kellie45 · 14/10/2022 17:26

What is so deeply infuriating about the latest batch of eco-protests is the way that they directly attack social trust. We can have nice galleries which are minimally intrusive because we trust people to treat them with respect, and that trust is repaid. When attention-seeking protesters use this trust to behave in damaging ways, that trust is broken: institutions are forced to introduce security checks, barriers, and other ways to distance people from the art. A small minority ruins a beautiful thing for everyone else.
Attacking trust in this way is an extremely unpleasant approach to protesting. It imposes costs on everybody else in exchange for a brief burst of attention. And it is a perfect summary of the approach taken by Britain’s green movements, shielded from criticism by impenetrable self-righteousness and the adulation of vacuum-skulled enablers who believe their cause is so sacred that nothing done in the name of the planet can really be wrong.

(Spectator today)

DismantledKing · 14/10/2022 17:49

SwordToFlamethrower · 14/10/2022 17:18

The painting was unharmed. There is nothing to be angry about.

Of course there fucking is

GreenWheat · 14/10/2022 18:04

SwordToFlamethrower · 14/10/2022 17:18

The painting was unharmed. There is nothing to be angry about.

Until they do it to an unprotected painting. So would you have "nothing to be angry about" if they threw soup at you. After all, you wouldn't actually be harmed.....

fallinover · 14/10/2022 18:04

My dc actually got to see this painting for the first time yesterday.
We saw lots of school kids being shown it.
Today they wouldn't have got the chance.
What tools

Abei · 14/10/2022 18:11

SwordToFlamethrower · 14/10/2022 17:18

The painting was unharmed. There is nothing to be angry about.

Do you know that for a fact? Are you one of these people with nothing better to do and your tiktok at the ready?

Plexie · 14/10/2022 18:14

I've posted this on the other thread too:

Some Suffragette campaigners damaged paintings in public art galleries in the early 1900s (and also committed arson elsewhere).

There was a display at the National Portrait Gallery in London a few years ago of the steps galleries took to prevent it: liaising with each other and the police, circulating mug-shots, extra guards, bag searches (sound familiar?). And I'm not sure if I'm mis-remembering but I think at one stage women visitors were only allowed if they were accompanied by a man.

Here's an article about similar steps taken in Liverpool:

www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/troublesome-ladies-and-vote100

"... as reported in the Liverpool Daily Post on 8 May 1914, visitors had been banned from bringing bags, cameras and packages in to the Walker and four additional commissionaires, or guards, had been employed to patrol the galleries in the hope of averting a suffragette attack."

TastesLikeFlavourlessFizz · 14/10/2022 18:15

I’m too PMSy to engage properly with this thread (think rage rather than tearfulness) but add me to the list of people who think these little cunts are achieving the sum total of fuck all.

malificent7 · 14/10/2022 18:30

Yanbu BUT I do agree we should be more angry with the perpetrators of climate change ( hydrocarbon/ energy companies) than these loosers.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/10/2022 18:43

Kellie45 · 14/10/2022 17:26

What is so deeply infuriating about the latest batch of eco-protests is the way that they directly attack social trust. We can have nice galleries which are minimally intrusive because we trust people to treat them with respect, and that trust is repaid. When attention-seeking protesters use this trust to behave in damaging ways, that trust is broken: institutions are forced to introduce security checks, barriers, and other ways to distance people from the art. A small minority ruins a beautiful thing for everyone else.
Attacking trust in this way is an extremely unpleasant approach to protesting. It imposes costs on everybody else in exchange for a brief burst of attention. And it is a perfect summary of the approach taken by Britain’s green movements, shielded from criticism by impenetrable self-righteousness and the adulation of vacuum-skulled enablers who believe their cause is so sacred that nothing done in the name of the planet can really be wrong.

(Spectator today)

Yes! Go and protest outside Shell HQ or the Houses of Parliament, FFS. Why ruin the National Gallery for everyone, including poor kids and everyone else who benefits 1from free entry? I remember how sad it was in the 1990s before Labour were in power and most big galleries and museums had to charge for admission because their taxpayer-funding had been slashed.

Kellie45 · 14/10/2022 19:23

SwordToFlamethrower · 14/10/2022 17:18

The painting was unharmed. There is nothing to be angry about.

Frankly that appears to me a pretty stupid statement. If someone came and threw a tin of soup on the painting hanging on my wall I would be angry!

Wheredoallthepensgo · 14/10/2022 20:21

Kellie45 · 14/10/2022 17:26

What is so deeply infuriating about the latest batch of eco-protests is the way that they directly attack social trust. We can have nice galleries which are minimally intrusive because we trust people to treat them with respect, and that trust is repaid. When attention-seeking protesters use this trust to behave in damaging ways, that trust is broken: institutions are forced to introduce security checks, barriers, and other ways to distance people from the art. A small minority ruins a beautiful thing for everyone else.
Attacking trust in this way is an extremely unpleasant approach to protesting. It imposes costs on everybody else in exchange for a brief burst of attention. And it is a perfect summary of the approach taken by Britain’s green movements, shielded from criticism by impenetrable self-righteousness and the adulation of vacuum-skulled enablers who believe their cause is so sacred that nothing done in the name of the planet can really be wrong.

(Spectator today)

This!!

MrsTuxedo · 14/10/2022 20:26

Plexie · 14/10/2022 18:14

I've posted this on the other thread too:

Some Suffragette campaigners damaged paintings in public art galleries in the early 1900s (and also committed arson elsewhere).

There was a display at the National Portrait Gallery in London a few years ago of the steps galleries took to prevent it: liaising with each other and the police, circulating mug-shots, extra guards, bag searches (sound familiar?). And I'm not sure if I'm mis-remembering but I think at one stage women visitors were only allowed if they were accompanied by a man.

Here's an article about similar steps taken in Liverpool:

www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/troublesome-ladies-and-vote100

"... as reported in the Liverpool Daily Post on 8 May 1914, visitors had been banned from bringing bags, cameras and packages in to the Walker and four additional commissionaires, or guards, had been employed to patrol the galleries in the hope of averting a suffragette attack."

I didn't know that!

LividLaVidaLoca · 14/10/2022 20:34

I’m sort-of-friends with one of the guys from this group.

Yep, I think their targets are weirdly chosen in this case, and yep, he’s always been a bit trustafarian.

BUT.

Shouldn’t we all be taking the planet far, far more seriously? We’re all so far stuck in the hamster wheel of life and jobs and kids (I know I am) to have the energy to even contemplate the bigger picture.

I saw him for the first time in years recently and his point was that the world would quickly become a better place if we ALL just said enough is enough.

We won’t, though, will we, because we’re all just so fucking sick and tired. So we carry on same as before.

And get mad at the people twatting up paintings, when really the world the paintings are in is being destroyed.

I hope you see my point. I’m not even sure what it is because I’m too tired to make it.

VegMam · 14/10/2022 20:43

If you think this is bad way until you hear about what’s happening to the natural world…

70% of animal populations wiped out since 1970

Anyway no paintings were harmed during this protest.

ArcaneWireless · 14/10/2022 20:44

Fine to stand up and say enough is enough. That is completely commendable.

Delaying ambulances and attempting to vandalise works of art? Not commendable.

I’d think more of them if they did the guerrilla insulation or HOP protest mentioned above.

So far though, their methods are alienating a lot of people.

MrsTerryPratchett · 14/10/2022 20:47

“What is worth more, art or life?” said one of the activists, Phoebe Plummer, 21, from Londonn*.

Frankly, I'd pick the Sunflowers over Phoebe.

ArcaneWireless · 14/10/2022 20:48

Sorry - posted too soon.

And yes, we absolutely need to begin to try to sort out this awful damage we have done to our world.

If they only could draw attention to the awful news in vegmam’s post rather than to themselves. Because that is what folk are concentrating on.

Not what is important.

MereDintofPandiculation · 14/10/2022 20:54

Trying to do permanent damage to world class masterpieces is not good PR.…Trying to destroy famous works of Art FFS!. On the contrary, they seem to be trying NOT to destroy artworks. Where they’ve been described as glueing themselves to paintings, they’ve actually been gluing themselves to the frame, and they chose a painting with glass over to throw soup at.

Plexie · 14/10/2022 20:58

his point was that the world would quickly become a better place if we ALL just said enough is enough

But it's not enough to 'say' enough is enough. Most of the world would have to drastically amend their consumption and lifestyles - green-washing round the edges with recycling and LED lightbulbs isn't enough.

Trilla · 14/10/2022 20:59

All the latest protests have been fucking ridiculous, throwing actual shit at statues, soup at painting, wasting milk in shops, blocking roads, they're total twats.