Climate activists throw mashed potatoes at Monet's 'The Haystacks' in Germany

Two supporters of the Letzte Generation (Last Generation) climate activist group threw mashed potatoes on Sunday against a painting by Claude Monet, from the series Les meules (The Haystacks) and exhibited at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, near Berlin.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
24 October 2022 Monday 02:57
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Climate activists throw mashed potatoes at Monet's 'The Haystacks' in Germany

Two supporters of the Letzte Generation (Last Generation) climate activist group threw mashed potatoes on Sunday against a painting by Claude Monet, from the series Les meules (The Haystacks) and exhibited at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, near Berlin. The painting, framed in a gold frame, was protected by glass and came out unscathed. Still, it is being examined by experts and will be placed back on display on Wednesday, according to a statement issued by the museum.

In the note, the director of the Barberini museum, Ortrud Westheider, was "relieved that the painting has not suffered any damage" and that it can soon be exhibited to the public again. "While I understand the urgency of activists' concern about climate catastrophe, I am shocked at the means by which they try to give weight to their demands," she said.

Director Westheider recalled that "it is in the works of the Impressionists that we see the intense artistic engagement with nature. The many landscape paintings in the Hasso Plattner collection can inspire visitors to reflect and question their relationship with the environment."

This painting by the Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) is entitled Piles of Cereal, is part of his series The Haystacks and dates from 1890 and has been part of the Hasso Plattner Collection of the Barberini Museum since it was acquired in 2019 for 110.7 million dollars at a Sotheby's auction. The Barberini museum exhibits it in its permanent exhibition.

The executors of the attack are supporters of the climate activist group Letzte Generation (Last generation). In a statement released by the activist group, they pointed out that with their action "they pose to society the same question that two young women asked in the National Gallery in London with tomato soup a week ago: What is worth more, art or life?". There, two other activists attacked Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers with tomato soup.

"This is cultural barbarism and not a political statement. You are harming your cause," the mayor of Potsdam, Social Democrat Mike Schubert, wrote on Twitter. Environmentalist Ursula Nonnemacher, Minister for the Environment of the Land of Brandenburg -of which Potsdam is the capital-, stated on Twitter that "the fight against the climate crisis is not strengthened by attacks on famous paintings" and that, on the contrary, what What is needed is a "broad social consensus". The regional Minister of Culture, the Social Democrat Manja Schüle, pointed out on the same social network that with their action the activists "do a disservice" to the "giant task of climate protection" and "deliberately destroy cultural treasures".

The one suffered in the Barberini museum in Potsdam is the third such attack in just fourteen days. In addition to Monet and Van Gogh, the painting Massacre in Korea by Pablo Picasso was also the object of similar aggression. On October 9, two people stuck their hands to this painting, which was exhibited in Melbourne (Australia).