Why won’t JUST STOP OIL just stop?

The British environmental activist group, Just Stop Oil, calls for the UK to stop licensing new oil, gas or coal projects. They attack works of art.  And we can’t look away. Why, other than the sensation of the Getty name as a supporter/funder? One of the group’s representatives admits that “Art has been extremely valuable to us as a disruptor,” and explains that one reason is that “we are embarrassing them.” They are joined by others, like the network of groups called The Last Generation, in their efforts to call attention to the looming catastrophe of climate change.

Few environmental groups have a budget to cover the publicity scored by the May, 2022 attack on the Mona Lisa (by a lone actor) or when The Last Generation protestors glued their hands to Primavera by Botticelli, July, 2022, in the Uffizi.

These activists felt the message on the danger of climate change wasn’t getting through - that people were not internalizing the issue. How has art become the megaphone, even Bat-Signal, for their message, whether or not you agree with their methods? Or even how you feel about climate change. Let’s consider the emotional response to the October, 2022 incident when Just Stop Oil protestors threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflower in London’s National Gallery to see how that was accomplished.

  First, Sunflower belongs to the public, so “the public” felt attacked. Next, the work is familiar to us all. We know it. Art does not have to represent a human form for the viewer to feel an attachment, or to think of it as a living thing.