Vegetable soup on Van Gogh's Sower. Sangiuliano: Very serious act. Justice will take its course

Another action by environmentalists toward a work of art: this morning activists from the group Ultima generazione, an Italian rib of Extinction Rebellion, entered Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome, where the Van Gogh exhibition with fifty works from the Kröller Müller Museum in Otterlo is underway, paying their tickets regularly, and arrived in front of the Sower and threw vegetable soup on the painting. The work was protected by glass. After making the gesture, the activists glued themselves to the wall shouting slogans against the use of coal and about climate change. Security immediately intervened and closed the exhibition halls and removed visitors.

In the afternoon Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano personally went to the Bonaparte Palace, leaving some statements: “I came here to stigmatize that in my opinion this was a very serious act because we are a democratic country that regulates and makes all forms of protest possible and free. By the way, if you want to protest for the environment (which is something that is close to my heart as well and in whose protection we have to commit ourselves on a daily basis) everyone can do it, and it has been done a lot through free demonstrations, dissemination of leaflets, pamphlets, posters, books: there are so many ways to express one’s sensitivity to the environment. But you cannot damage an important work of art, by a great author, a witness of our time and the past, and so this act is not okay. Obviously now justice will take its course; there is an investigation by the carabinieri that will ascertain the facts, the modalities, what was the real intention. Fortunately, the work was well protected (it fills me with joy that it was not seriously damaged); then the judiciary will do its work, but we have to work to make sure that these things do not happen and above all to make these young people understand that this is not the way to express ideas that may also have their own foundation.” “Attacking art is a vile act that should be strongly condemned. Culture, which is the basis of our identity, should be defended and protected, certainly not used as a megaphone for other forms of protest. Moreover, our cultural heritage should be protected precisely from the consequences of climate change. Therefore, this umpteenth gesture cannot pass as a legitimate expression of protest. It is right, just today, to remember that crimes against cultural heritage are severely punished and the perpetrators are subject to criminal prosecution,” he reiterated.
“We knew from day one that they would come to demonstrate inside the Van Gogh exhibition, we were ready and we knew it could not be avoided. The security measures taken meant that the impact was almost imperceptible, as we could not bring bags, backpacks or anything else bulky inside the exhibition,” added Iole Siena, president of Arthemisia, a company that organized the exhibition in collaboration with the Otterlo museum. “The work did not suffer any damage, and that’s what matters. That said, I think the media gesture - because that’s what it is - is definitely to be condemned, a stupid action done by stupid people. Which achieves the exact opposite effect to the one intended, because identifying environmentalists with vandals does not benefit their cause, far from it. It is not by doing horrible actions that we build consensus on important issues, and it is certainly not by destroying art that we will save the planet. In the end, the works were not damaged, museums and exhibitions benefit from significant media attention, the only ones who come out with broken bones, condemned by public opinion and without concrete results, are the protesters themselves.”

Vegetable soup on Van Gogh's Sower. Sangiuliano: Very serious act. Justice will take its course

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