Climate activists have vandalised a Gustav Klimt painting with a dark, oily fluid. Another glued himself to its frame, similar to actions carried out by Just Stop Oil.
Agitators from the group Last Generation Austria struck the 1915 painting Death And Life at the Leopold Museum in Vienna to protest against their government’s use of fossil energies.
After throwing the liquid on the painting – which was not damaged because it was behind a glass cover – one activist was pushed away by museum security while another protester glued his hand to the painting’s frame.
Fossil fuel protesters dump black paint on a Gustav Klimt masterpiece in Vienna. The painting was behind glass.
Security moved in and apprehended one of the assailants.pic.twitter.com/iIhT7K301U
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 15, 2022
On Twitter, the group defended the action, saying they were protesting against “oil and gas drilling”, which they called “a death sentence to society”.
In a video of the incident, which the group posted online, we can hear one of the activists shouting that “we have known about the problem for 50 years – we must finally act, otherwise, the planet will be broken”.
READ MORE: What is motivating art vandalism in 2022?
“Stop the fossil fuel destruction. We are racing into a climate hell.”
Different activist groups have staged numerous demonstrations in recent months, including blocking streets and attacking a King Charles III wax statue in Madame Tussauds.
Last month, the British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery.
Members of the same organisation also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper at London’s Royal Academy of Arts and John Constable’s The Hay Wain in the National Gallery.
READ MORE: Just Stop Oil | Who are they and what do they want?
