Two activists arrested after Rokeby Venus artwork targeted, as dozens of others held after blocking Whitehall
Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested after smashing the glass covering a Diego Velázquez painting at the National Gallery in London, as police detained dozens of others who blocked Whitehall.
Two activists targeted the glass on the Rokeby Venus painting with safety hammers before they were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
The artwork, which was painted by Velázquez in the 1600s, was slashed by the suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914. One of those involved on Monday said: “Women did not get the vote by voting; it is time for deeds not words.”
The Metropolitan police said at least 40 activists who were “slow marching” in Whitehall were also detained and that the road was clear after traffic was stopped for a brief period
Dudes be like nooo stop trying to hurt the nice paper and go protest somewhere else so we can more easily ignore you
Putting the protection of art above what these people are protesting is both hilarious and also extremely depressing
But this is very easy to ignore, a bougie art gallery?
Go slash a ceos neck or something if you’re going to go to gaol anyway.
This gets just as much attention for much less jail time.
This gets almost zero lasting attention. CEOs start dropping like flies at the hands of angry citizens? Yeah, that’s going to make a bigger difference.
Said “paper” has a shit ton of historical significance. art can define our culture alter our history and change our perception on things. Art like comedy or forms of media is also subjective what you may find rubbish another person may enjoy. And
in my upmost opinionthis isn’t protesting this is vandalism. I think it’s important that we must not forget history so we can learn from it and not repeat the mistakes of old. and a large part of not forgetting history is restoring and maintaining pieces of art such as thisGreat job comprehending what you’re reading.
It’s a million times more depressing that the majority of environmentalist-minded people apparently see these publicity stunts as positive.
The arts are like one of the first things to go if shit will start to go down due to climate change
Yeah, because art clearly hasn’t existed when there’s strife, crises or people are poor or suffering :D
We are talking about a painting from an artist in the court of a Spanish monarch from hundreds of years ago, a type of art that museums strive to maintain via expensive means. We are not talking about more ephemeral art that doesn’t get maintained, and is eventually lost to time anyway.
Maintaining of art like this would absolutely be one of the first things to go. There is already often talks about defunding the arts even in peaceful times. Look at “went to an art school” being often thrown around as a joke about being useless even in decent times.
You can talk circles around justifying this idiocy, it’s not going to make this clout chasing vandalism stunt any more clever. If justifying some kind of funding is what you want to talk about you’re free to do so, funding has never been something that stops art from existing, but that discussion is absolutely irrelevant to this thing. Besides, “the arts are one of the first things to go” isn’t talking about this one piece, it’s very general and you know it.