Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022

Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022

Climate activists have thrown tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent van Gogh, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022.

Three supporters of Just Stop Oil walked into the National Gallery in London, where an exhibition of Van Gogh’s collected works is on display, at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, and threw Heinz soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888.

The latter was the same work targeted by Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in 2022. That pair are now among 25 supporters of Just Stop Oil in jail for climate protests.

  • @webadictEnglish
    5•3 months ago

    You’ll have to excuse me, your gotcha question was of low quality, so I assumed you set me up a slam dunk.

    My mistake, I expected too much.

    Is your question seriously: Would I rather monuments be destroyed and people be alive, or that people be dead and monuments be preserved? Because obviously people are more important. But, if we stop climate change, we are likely to be able to enjoy both people being alive and monuments being preserved.

    • Flying SquidMEnglish
      -7•3 months ago

      That is not the question I asked. You are still evading. It’s not a gotcha. You said art doesn’t matter because of climate change. I am giving you two examples of art that can be turned into something functional (at a lower carbon output than cement or concrete, I might add) and you refuse to say whether or not they should be. Answer the question.

      • @webadictEnglish
        6•3 months ago

        I’m not evading the question, you just don’t like my answer and want one to that you can feel superior about, so you are attempting to lead me to a frankly ridiculous question based on what I can only assume is purposeful malintent.

        There is no art on a dead planet. There are no monuments without people. People give those things meaning. If we all die for the oil industry, then what good was the plexiglass covered in soup protecting that painting?

        It’s great that the carbon output of those art installations is so low. Did it offset the oil industry? If no, then who cares?

        Just. Stop. Oil.

        • Flying SquidMEnglish
          -5•3 months ago

          Like I said, using those blocks to build with would emit far less CO2 than the equivalent amount of concrete. You can keep pretending you answered a yes or no question, but you did not.

          And it’s because you are either supremely ignorant or know for a fact that art is vital to most people on this planet, literally going back to the origins of our species, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with oil, so defacing it will not stop fossil fuel production, and are just refusing to admit it.

          Maybe you would like to live in a world that is both fossil fuel and art free. Most people would not want to live in a world where the latter is the reality.

          • @webadictEnglish
            6•3 months ago

            Did they or did they not offset the oil industry: yes or no?

            See, I can do the same thing you did. It required me to argue in bad faith.

            I don’t care if we have any monuments if we also have an oil industry that kills the planet. I don’t want an oil industry. That is the answer! It has nothing to do with monuments, but monuments don’t matter if we have an oil industry.

            Not that it matters, because no art was harmed here, as you could plainly read in the article.

            Frankly, most people don’t want climate change, and most people would get used to having no oil industry really fast. I mean, we got used to Covid.

            • Flying SquidMEnglish
              -3•3 months ago

              Do paintings in a museum offset the oil industry? Because that’s what they’re throwing soup at.

              Does throwing soup at paintings stop the oil industry? Has it made a single dent in their massive profits?

              • @webadictEnglish
                4•3 months ago

                Does throwing soup at paintings stop the oil industry? Has it made a single dent in their massive profits?

                I’m glad you asked because it’s good to be a learned adult! The UK government has stopped the licensing of new oil, gas, and coal projects since Just Stop Oil started their campaign of civil disobedience. New levies have also been placed on oil and gas company profits, that are increasing as of November.

                Additionally, membership in Just Stop Oil continues to grow. So, it looks like, yes, throwing soup on paintings (as well as other forms of nonviolent resistance) DOES appear to put a dent in the profits of oil companies.

                Think of how much faster it would’ve been to ask that right off the bat instead of being so insipid :)

                • Flying SquidMEnglish
                  -3•3 months ago

                  Correlation is not causation.

                  Can you show that one actually is the cause of the other?

                  Edit: Actually, never mind. I didn’t notice the insult. I never insulted you. I have no interest in a Reddit name-calling festival. Find someone else to do it with.