BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Climate activists in Austria on Tuesday attacked a famous painting by artist Gustav Klimt with a black, oily liquid and one then glued himself to glass protecting the painting\u2019s frame.<\/p>\n
Members of the group Last Generation Austria tweeted they had targeted the 1915 painting \u201cDeath and Life\u201d at the Leopold Museum in Vienna to protest their government\u2019s use of fossil energies.<\/p>\n
After throwing the liquid on the painting, which wasn\u2019t damaged, one activist was pushed away by a museum guard while another glued his hand to the glass over the painting\u2019s frame.<\/p>\n
The group defended the protest, saying in a tweet that they were protesting \u201coil and gas drilling,\u201d which they called \u201ca death sentence to society.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a video of the incident, which the group posted online, one of the activists can be heard shouting that \u201cwe have known about the problem for 50 years \u2014 we must finally act, otherwise the planet will be broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStop the fossil fuel destruction. We are racing into a climate hell,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
After the attack, police arrived at the museum and the black liquid was quickly cleaned off the glass protecting the painting, Austria Press Agency reported.<\/p>\n
Despite thorough controls at the museum\u2019s entrance, the activists succeeded in bringing the liquid inside by hiding it in a hot water bottle under their clothes, the agency reported.<\/p>\n
The museum\u2019s restoration team said later that while the painting itself hadn\u2019t been harmed, the damage to the glass and security framing, as well as to the wall and floor, was \u201cevident and significant,\u201d APA reported.<\/p>\n
Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the director of the Leopold Museum, told APA that the concerns of the climate activists were justified, \u201cbut attacking works of art is definitely the wrong way to implement the targeted goal of preventing the predicted climate collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n
He appealed to the group to find other ways to make their concerns known.<\/p>\n
Austria\u2019s culture minister also expressed understanding for \u201cthe concerns and also the desperation\u201d of the activists, but criticized their form of protest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not believe that actions like these are purposeful, because the question arises whether they do not rather lead to more lack of understanding than to more awareness of the climate catastrophe,\u201d Andrea Mayer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my point of view, accepting the risk of irrevocable damage to works of art is the wrong way to go,\u201d the minister added. \u201cArt and culture are allies in the fight against climate catastrophe, not adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Klimt work is an oil on canvas painting in the Art Nouveau style depicting death on the left side and a group of partially naked, hugging people on the right side. It\u2019s one of the latest pieces of art to be targeted by climate activists to draw attention to global warming.<\/p>\n
Different activist groups have staged numerous demonstrations in recent months, including blocking streets and throwing mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in Germany.<\/p>\n
The British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh\u2019s \u201cSunflowers\u201d in London\u2019s National Gallery last month.<\/p>\n
Just Stop Oil activists also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d at London\u2019s Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable\u2019s \u201cThe Hay Wain\u201d in the National Gallery.<\/p>\n
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BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Climate activists in Austria on Tuesday attacked a famous painting by artist Gustav Klimt with a black, oily liquid and one then glued himself to glass protecting the painting\u2019s frame. Members of the group Last Generation Austria tweeted they had targeted the 1915 painting \u201cDeath and Life\u201d at the Leopold Museum in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-204972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}