Climate activists cling to Goya paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid
On Saturday, climate activists stuck their hands to the frames of two world-renowned paintings by Spanish master Francisco de Goya at the Prado Museum in Madrid, the latest in a series of protests targeting artworks across the 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 said its members organized the protest.
“Last week, the UN recognized the impossibility of keeping us below the 1.5 Celsius limit (set in the 2016 Paris climate agreement). We need change now,” said he wrote on Twitter.
Climate activist groups have held a series of similar protests in recent weeks as they prepare for the COP27 climate change conference in Egypt.
Protesters tried to stick to the glass covering Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in The Hague and others threw soup at Van Gogh’s ‘The Sower’ in Rome and one of his paintings Sunflowers in London. These two works were also covered.
Protesters spray painted 1.5 degrees C on the wall.
The Prado said his paintings, created at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, were undamaged and the graffiti on the wall was quickly painted over.
« We condemn the use of the museum as a venue for political protest of any kind, » the gallery added.
Police said two people were arrested.
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