Works by Monet and Van Gogh have recently been targeted by environmental activists in Germany and England. The Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak denounces their “absurd” logic.
The raft of the Medusa soon to be sprayed with mayonnaise? Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak has called on French museums to “redouble their vigilance” after works by Monet and Van Gogh were targeted by environmental activists in Germany and England.
“It’s terrible! How does the logic of climate defense lead to wanting to destroy a work of art? It’s absolutely absurd,” said the minister in an interview with Le Parisien published online on Tuesday evening.
Believing that not all works can be protected by glass, and that France is not “safe one day from a frenzied activist attacking a painting that has none”, she “asked everyone the national museums to redouble their vigilance, to talk about it with the surveillance agents, to prepare them for all these eventualities”.
Paintings by Monet and Van Gogh touched
On Sunday at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam (Germany), “Les Meules” by Claude Monet was the target of two environmental activists who sprinkled the painting with mash, without damage because it was protected by glass. These activists thus intended to protest against the inaction in favor of the protection of the planet and the living.
After their gesture, they took the same pose as the activists who had thrown tomato soup on October 14 on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London, a painting also protected by glass.
At the end of May, “La Joconde” had been entared at the Louvre Museum. A gesture without consequence since it too had been placed since 2005 behind armored glass. The author of this act had also mentioned the “planet”, before being placed in the psychiatric infirmary.
Questioned this week by AFP, several major museums refused to provide details as to the measures already implemented or to come to strengthen the security of works of art. The Center Pompidou nevertheless indicated that it had “taken into account these attacks, which have been increasing for some time” by a “specific” exchange “with its teams”.