Two climate protesters were apprehended in Stockholm on Wednesday for smearing “some kind of paint” and attempting to glue themselves to a Monet painting, reported Sweden’s National Museum.
The defaced artwork was Claude Monet’s “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny,” part of an exhibition titled “The Garden.” It’s currently unclear if any real damage was caused.
Museum spokesperson Hanna Tottmar said the painting was secured behind glass and “is now being examined by the museum’s conservators to see if any damage has occurred.”
The entire exhibition was closed following the incident, but is expected to reopen to museum-goers on Thursday.
“We naturally distance ourselves from actions where art or cultural heritage risks being damaged … regardless of the purpose,” said the museum’s acting director, Per Hedström.
A video of the protest showed the two women smearing red paint on the artwork and calling for action to combat climate change.
“The situation is urgent. As a nurse, I refuse to watch. The pandemic was nothing compared to the climate collapse. It’s about life or death,” shouted one woman, later identified as Emma Johanna Fritzdotter.
“People won’t just die from heat stroke. New diseases will spread, and we cannot even imagine the extent of this,” she continued.
According to Helen Wahlgren, a spokesperson for an activist group called Restore Wetlands, the protest aimed to put pressure on the Swedish government, urging them to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to do everything possible to draw attention to this climate catastrophe and our demands to restore the wetlands, which store large amounts of carbon,” Wahlgren said.
“The Artist’s Garden at Giverny,” which the French impressionist painted in 1900, is the latest museum piece to fall victim to climate activists protesting government inaction.
Last October, a British activist group, Just Stop Oil, splattered tomato soup onto Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery.