Two environmental activists from the Just Stop Oil movement, which calls for the halting of all new fossil fuel-related infrastructure, clung to the frame of a Van Gogh painting in a London museum on Thursday.
The action targeted the 1889 painting “Fishermen in Bloom,” depicting a landscape in the south of France, exhibited at the Courtauld Gallery, according to the environmental organization and the museum.
“We are sorry … we don’t like to do this, we are glued to this painting, this magnificent painting, because we are terrified of our future,” said 21-year-old activist Louis McKechnie in a video posted online by the organization.
Already arrested 20 times, the young man, who spent six weeks in jail this winter for having blocked the motorway around London with others, had already made himself known by managing to interrupt a football match in March after tying himself to the post of a bow.
McKechnie had recently declared to AFP that he was willing to become “the first public enemy” to alert about the climate crisis, carrying out “non-violent” actions in which lives are not put in danger.
The Courtauld Gallery told AFP that the room where the painting was on display “was immediately closed to the public” after the action and that it hopes to reopen it on Friday.
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