Climate protesters smash cake on King Charles wax figure, smear potatoes on Monet
Reuters | Posted: October 24, 2022 1:04 PM | Last Updated: October 24, 2022
Activists hoped to grab attention and spur climate action through string of protests
A wax model of King Charles was on the receiving end of a chocolate cake on Monday, the latest demonstration in a string of activism meant to spur climate action.
Two protesters with British activist group Just Stop Oil smashed cake onto the face of a wax model of the King at London's Madame Tussauds wax museum.
"In the words of the King, the science is clear, the demands are simple. Just stop oil. It's a piece of cake," said activist Tom Johnson.
Just the day before, climate protesters with the group Last Generation threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum to protest fossil fuel extraction.
The painting was not damaged.
The activists, calling on the German government to take drastic action to protect the climate and stop using fossil fuels, approached Monet's Les Meules at Potsdam's Barberini Museum and threw a thick substance over the painting and its gold frame.
The group later confirmed via a post on Twitter that the mixture was mashed potatoes. The two activists, both wearing orange high-visibility vests, also glued themselves to the wall below the painting.
"If it takes a painting — with mashed potatoes or tomato soup thrown at it — to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we'll give you mashed potatoes on a painting!" the group posted on Twitter, along with a video of the incident.
In total, four people were involved in the incident, according to German news agency dpa.
The Barberini Museum said that because the painting was enclosed in glass, there was no damage. The painting, part of Monet's "Haystacks" series, is expected to be back on display on Wednesday.
"While I understand the activists' urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands," museum director Ortrud Westheider said in a statement.
Police told dpa they had responded to the incident, but further information about arrests or charges was not immediately available.
The Monet painting is the latest artwork in a museum to be targeted by climate activists to draw attention to global warming.
The British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers in London's National Gallery earlier this month.
Just Stop Oil activists 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 to John Constable's The Hay Wain in the National Gallery.