Two persons were arrested after they had glued their hands to the frames of two world-famous paintings by Spanish master Francisco de Goya in Madrid’s Prado museum on Saturday. In the latest instance of protests targeting artworks across Europe, a man and a woman attached themselves to Goya’s “La Maja Vestida” (The Clothed Maja) and his “La Maja Desnuda” (The Naked Maja), and painted “+1.5 C” on the wall between the two works, video footage showed.
Campaign group Futuro Vegetal claimed responsibility for the protest. Previously, the United Nations recognised the impossibility of keeping us below the limit of 1.5 Celsius (set in the 2016 Paris climate agreement). We need change now,” it wrote on Twitter. Groups of climate activists have mounted a series of similar demonstrations recently ahead of the COP27 climate change conference in Egypt.
Protesters tried to glue themselves to the glass covering Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in the Hague and others threw soup over Van Gogh’s ‘The Sower’ in Rome and one of his Sunflowers paintings in London. Both of those works were also covered.
Climate activists glued their hands to the frames of two world-famous paintings by Spanish master Francisco de Goya in Madrid’s Prado museum on Saturday, the latest in a string of protests targeting artworks across Europe.
A man and a woman attached themselves to Goya’s “La Maja Vestida” (The Clothed Maja) and his “La Maja Desnuda” (The Naked Maja), and painted “+1.5 C” on the wall between the two works, video footage showed.
According to the advocacy group Futuro Vegetal, its members were behind the protests. According to the Prado, the wall graffiti was immediately covered up and the paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries had not been harmed.
The gallery was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying, “We reject the use of the museum as a location to make a political protest of any type.”
The environmental group claims Schipol, which emits 12 billion kilogrammes of carbon dioxide yearly, is the main source of carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands, prompting yet another round of anti-climate change protests. In a first, hundreds of protesters with posters reading “Restrict Aviation” and “More Trains” congregated in and around the airport’s main hall.
Schipol stated that it supported goals for the aviation industry to generate net zero emissions by 2050 and that it wanted to become an emissions-free airport by 2030.
The discovery was brought to light after the Dutch government revealed intentions in June to curb annual airport traffic at 440,000, which is roughly 11% below 2019 levels, citing worries about air pollution and the environment. The surge in private aircraft traffic could not be stopped, the ministry of transportation said parliament in October, and the government was considering releasing its climate strategy.
According to a statement from airport security, they “made a number of detentions of those who were on airport property without authorization.”
(WITH AGENCY INPUTS)