Just Stop Oil’s climate activism is one of the most successful disobedience campaigns ever, says John Paul Stonard. Whether or not you like their tactics, their actions oblige us to take a position.
On 30 June 2022, two young Just Stop Oil activists glued themselves to the frame of Van Gogh’s Peach Trees in Blossom at the Courtauld Gallery, calling for the government to end the licensing of all new North Sea oil and gas. Since then, activists have targeted Constable’s The Hay Wain at the National Gallery, Horatio McCulloch’s My Heart is in the Highlands in the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow, Turner’s Thomson's Aeolian Harp at the Manchester Art Gallery, and the copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper at the Royal Academy.
They have, most famously, thrown soup at the glazing on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery, and more notoriously broken the glazing on Velázquez’s The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’).
Most recently, activists propelled orange corn starch onto the great megaliths of Stonehenge. Similar protests have taken place around Europe and in America. All these ‘direct actions’ are part of an ongoing campaign of civil disruption that also involves concerts, theatre and sporting events... Keep reading on The Art Newspaper.
On 30 June 2022, two young Just Stop Oil activists glued themselves to the frame of Van Gogh’s Peach Trees in Blossom at the Courtauld Gallery, calling for the government to end the licensing of all new North Sea oil and gas. Since then, activists have targeted Constable’s The Hay Wain at the National Gallery, Horatio McCulloch’s My Heart is in the Highlands in the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow, Turner’s Thomson's Aeolian Harp at the Manchester Art Gallery, and the copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper at the Royal Academy.
They have, most famously, thrown soup at the glazing on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery, and more notoriously broken the glazing on Velázquez’s The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’).
Most recently, activists propelled orange corn starch onto the great megaliths of Stonehenge. Similar protests have taken place around Europe and in America. All these ‘direct actions’ are part of an ongoing campaign of civil disruption that also involves concerts, theatre and sporting events... Keep reading on The Art Newspaper.