Two climate activists condemned for ‘attacking’ Van Gogh’s work, and within hours other activists did it again

“Just Stop Oil” is written on the T-shirts of three militants who throw soup at them sunflower from Vincent van Gogh at the National Gallery in London. This just happened. The urgency is that this happened just hours after two activists from the same British environmental organization were jailed for doing exactly the same thing in the same place: throwing tomato soup sunflower by Van Gogh at the National Gallery in October 2022.

Who are the convicts? Phoebe Plummer23 years and Anna Holland22. Both women were sentenced to two years and twenty months in prison at London’s Southwark Crown Court for damaging a gold picture frame worth £10,000 (almost €12,000).

The video of the new “aggression” was shared by the organization’s official account. “There are people in prison for calling for an end to new gas and oil projects,” the activists said, referring to their convicted colleagues.

The National Gallery said in a statement that three activists had been arrested and that the paintings, two more from the series Sunflowerof 1888 and 1889, remain undamaged. “The works have been removed from the exhibition and examined by a restorer and are intact. We hope to be able to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible,” the London museum wrote.

In October 2022, Plummer and Holland, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, poured the contents of two Heinz tomato soup cans onto the 1888 work, then knelt in front of it and pressed their hands against the wall. Although the oil painting was not colored because it was protected by glass, the frame, which the museum bought in 1999 for £28,000 (€33,500), was damaged.

At the judge’s sentencing Christopher Hehir He stated that activists “couldn’t have cared less if the painting was damaged or not” and regretted that a “cultural treasure” might have been lost.

With information from EFE