Environmental activists deface Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" with tomato soup.

    Two days ago, a pair of activists from the "Just Stop Oil" campaign group threw the contents of a tomato soup tin on Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" painting, displayed at the National Gallery in London. They then proceeded to glue themselves to the wall and delivered a short statement highlighted by the words: “What is worth more, art or life? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?”. The painting didn't suffer any damage as it was protected by a glass pane. At the time of writing the original video circulating Twitter has gathered over 50 million views and numerous prominent news outlets have covered the story. The protest has sparked outrage on social media where most people ridiculed the activists, and some even advocated for jailing them.

    I think the idea behind the protest was brilliant and brought about the desired effect. It didn't inconvenience or endanger anyone as many 'radical' protests tend to do, while still making headlines around the world and getting hundreds of millions of people talking. The immediate emotional reaction to the apparent destruction of the painting and complete ignorance towards the message perfectly prove the point made in the manifesto. A lot of people seem to argue that this kind of behaviour only deters people from supporting the cause, which is only a sad reflection of how petty people can be. In this case, I think all publicity is good publicity and the people greatly opposing the happening weren't likely to be convinced in the first place.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/14/just-stop-oil-activists-throw-soup-at-van-goghs-sunflowers