Paint, glue and all kinds of products have been the most celebrated paintings in Europe, through various artists and movements. None of the Flemish paintings have been preserved for modern works. From Vermeer to Warhol. What?
The answer, as it may seem obvious, is written on Just Stop Oil t-shirts (translate: Stop oil now). But, the whole sea of ​​opinions is completely engulfed by his actions: Are they just? What is the place museums occupy today? What real impacts have they generated in the States? Are their activities at the top or the middle?
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer, Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh and The Haystacks by Claude Monet, did not ignore the glue and all kinds of liquids that went around on their foreheads. The actions of these activists are aimed at making a public statement (non-violent) that is based on the restoration of the state of glass, paintings or works that have a commercial value of more than 10 million cash and an inestimable artistic value.
From left to right: Haystacks by Claude Monet, The Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh, and The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer
The intervention on the fronts of the paintings in the matter of weeks goes around the world and has different positions in this matter from those who confirm this type of activity in museum institutions to those who justify their activity by the attributes of the colonists. The city once had
Several questions remain in the air: are their actions effective? What changes have been generated since you started your interventions in monuments? Is it possible that, with persistence, they can get the government to change their vision of the state?
So far the petitions of the supporters of Justi Desine Od. However, their activities have spread throughout the world, creating partnerships with other environmental organizations and providing new information to disseminate to different generations.
Opinion, a British company, completed a survey of more than 3,000 people in the UK and the results were surprising. Contrary to what we think, the viral activities against museum institutions and their works did not look a good impression on their imaginations.
Steve Akehurst, climate activist working for the European Climate Foundation, said: “Because successful and influential studies are really hard to pull off, activists sometimes fall back on the belief that basically every public good is a public good.” (…) if he is present. which this experiment proves, this is not true.
Art accompanies the process of man’s time and has made it possible to capture, through various forms, the issues that most affect the age: scientific and technical progress, methods (social classes), ethical, moral and environmental challenges.
Which artists addressed the environment in their works?
Art is no stranger to this matter and at the beginning of the 20th century several artists in Europe began to use the object as a distinct message in their works: La bouteille de vieux Marc (1913) by Pablo Picasso, Cially (1914). Kurt Schwitters, Tappeto-natura (1965) Piero Gilardi, Rhine water (1972) Hans Haacke Rheno, Sanitation Mierle Laderman Ukeles (1978-1980), Angelica Vik Muniz (1998), Grafted Garden Tetsumi Kudo (2013) or the park of the Fernando brothers and Humberto Campana generated a reflection on what the artists and reflections were doing, they established the reason for the climate crisis that we are currently experiencing.
La bouteille de vieux Marc Pablo Picasso, Cially Kurt Schwitters, Grafted Garden Tetsumi Kudo and Angelica Vik Muniz
From his works it could be demonstrated that the art that advocates the rejection of an object that is obsolete, trivial or considered obsolete. After World War II, erosion against the environment and biodiversity accelerated. Faced with this, several artists came to answer for him. Lauranne Germond, co-founder of the Coalition for Cultural Ecology, said that this wave of ecological art “carries to turn culture on itself, the end of the perception of nature as a fixed set of things.”
It allows us to think about art as a transformative concept and a cultural input that – little by little – allows us to lay the foundations in favor of the reception of public environmental issues.
Oil Only Subsistente has called attention to the agenda of various media issues, but its actions have not been effective in changing the plans, policies and initiatives of the States. In fact, there are more legal and economic activities that fall on its members than their achievements; which dried up with the contributions of Aileen Getty and her family heirs (which is related to the oil boom).
In the end, their actions, more than threats, are invited to the attention of the public to the actions that the UK government has to implement, and they have spread to other latitudes, such as: the United States, Germany; Australia and France.
However, many of their activities fell into the common that did not generate and generated any change in the political or regulatory arena, on the contrary, the visitor spaces of the museum have greater restrictions and new security measures that are distant from the subject. work: whatever it may be.
What is the fault of art? No one. In the end, as John Ruskin says, “art is the expression of society” and active intervention in the works of various artists is more of a functional medium than a utility; that no government can persuade extractivists to change their policies. For now, the change is more on the part of financial artists than Just Stop Od.
