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When Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" Are in the Art Soup

Writer's picture: Joan FernandezJoan Fernandez

Art as a platform for vandalism or activism?





Bought from a street artist in Paris, this stylized Mona Lisa hangs on a wall in my writing space.

Would you throw food onto a priceless work of art? Say, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci?


I imagine your gut reaction is like mine: Of course not!


But what if lives were at stake? What if people you love were threatened? And vandalizing art was the only rescue at hand?


Now I feel a gut check. We’re not just talking about a prank anymore.


And that’s the point: We’re talking.


What Happened on the Way to the National Gallery


On September 15, three people threw tomato soup at priceless paintings. The liquid splashed Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers 1888 and Sunflowers 1889 on display in London’s National Gallery. The artwork is among sixty Van Gogh paintings assembled for the current exhibition Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers.


After quickly being examined for any damage, the paintings were back on display a few hours later. The three people are charged with causing criminal damage.

Their stunt imitated the protest of two climate activists, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who had splashed soup on a single Sunflowers in October 22, 2022, also at the National Gallery.


Protected by a glass pane, the painting was unharmed then too. The activists’ goal was not to damage the masterpiece, but rather to use it as a way to be heard. To raise awareness to the UK government’s inaction on both the cost of living and climate crises.


Plummer spoke about why they pulled the stunt in a Twitter video. She said: “Absolutely no damage [was] done to the painting. It was behind glass and we never ever would have considered doing it if we didn’t know it was behind glass and we wouldn’t do any damage. . .they wiped it off with a bit of kitchen roll.


“I recognize that it looks like a slightly ridiculous action. I agree it is ridiculous, butwe’re not asking the question should everybody be throwing soup at paintings. What we’re doing is getting the conversation going so we can ask the questions that matter.”


She then draws attention to issues such as the large number of fossil fuel licenses former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss granted, the amount of subsidies that fossil fuels received compared to renewable energy, which has a significantly lower cost. She points out the connection of these policies to growing concerns about energy costs raising the cost of living for ordinary people, forcing them to choose between “heating or eating.”


“ Because we don’t have time to waste. . .what we do in the next three to four years will determine the future of humanity. . . so we’re using these actions to get media attention because we need to get people talking about this now.”


Their Cause Sparks Art Community Support


Perhaps surprisingly, the protestors’ actions sparked support from the art community.


More than 100 artists, curators and art historians signed a protest letter that both women be spared a jail sentence.


Organized by Greenpeace UK and Liberate Tate, the letter says: “Crucially, Plummer and Holland knew the painting was protected from the soup by a solid pane of glass when they threw the red-orange missive, making a Pollock-esque splatter across the mustard yellow, drooping blooms. Their iconoclasm was temporary, a sight to behold to make their protest.


“As artists, art workers and art historians, we are concerned by the courts’ defence of a false notion of artistic purity in their judgement and sentencing. Art can be and frequently is, iconoclasm. These activists should not receive custodial sentences for an act that connects entirely to the artistic canon.”


I love this.


Art as Protest


I love how this art community is recognizing art as protest, not simply precious. How they’re focusing on the activism vs. vandalism. Acknowledging how art is a forerunner to challenging the conventional and dysfunctional. Pick a 20th or 21st century war and you will find artwork protesting the chaos, futility, exhaustion and devastation of it.


Pick a headline on the climate. You’ll find unprecedented rises in ocean and land surface temperatures; acceleration levels of C02 in the atmosphere; heat relief camps and school closures in many countries; the prospect of unliveable cities, and the devastation caused by fire and flooding around the world. Pretending these events are an aberration is long behind us.


This feels protest-worthy.


At a minimum, we should be talking about it. Because indifference, ignoring how the seasons are not like “when we were kids,” denial, turning away because it all feels futile isn’t going to help my future, my kids’, my grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s future.


Or yours.


Not to mention the future of the life forms we share the planet with.


Vincent van Gogh famously wrote, “The greatest and most energetic people of the century have always worked against the grain.”


I think he would have approved of a little soup.


On September 20, the protestors Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years behind bars, and Holland, 22, to 20 months.


They express no regrets.


At a minimum, I’m voting for candidates who support climate change. That’s one way to spread the word.




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