Climate activists glue hands to Vincent van Gogh painting and other artwork in UK

UK climate activists stuck their hands to the frames of three valuable works of art – including one by Vincent van Gogh – in three separate incidents this week to protest the UK’s environmental policies.

The protests took place in galleries in Glasgow, London and Manchester on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and targeted works by Horatio McCulloch, van Gogh and JMW Turner, according to supporters.

The stunts, which were endorsed and organized by the group Just Stop Oil, came as protesters berated world leaders for failing to take meaningful action on climate change at this week’s G7 summit in Germany.

On Wednesday, the band members tied the knot with McCulloch’s « My Heart’s In The Highlands » at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Scotland, according to STV News.

Protesters also sprayed the climate group’s logo on the gallery’s walls and floor in orange paint. Three women and two men were arrested, according to the report.

The following day, a man and a woman stuck to van Gogh’s 1889 painting « Peaches in Blossom » and were confronted by police, according to footage shared by Just Stop Oil.

« Heads of arts institutions should call on the government to immediately halt all new oil and gas projects, » Louis McKechnie, 21, said in a statement posted on the group’s website. “Either we are in resistance, or we are accomplices.

« Billionaires are getting richer while nurses are lining up at food banks, tens of millions of people around the world are starving, and half of the world’s population is in extreme danger from heat waves, floods, fires and famine, » said Emily Brocklebank, 24.

« Meanwhile, the arts establishment, politicians and fossil fuel companies are looking the other way. »

And on Friday, two more defenders attached themselves to the frame of Turner’s « Tomson’s Aeolian Harp » at the Manchester Art Gallery, the group said.

Artistic protest campaigns followed a series of disruptions at football matches to draw attention to the group’s cause and mass blockades to disrupt the transport of oil in England, according to The Guardian.