After 38 attacks on art, climate protesters have fallen into big oil’s trap – it’s time to change tack

Repetition has blunted the art museum protests so much that the pumpkin soup assault on the Mona Lisa felt pathetic. More effective tactics are needed

How many of the 38 environmental protests staged in museums in 2022 can you remember? How many of the more recent ones only generated widespread outrage? Did any of them lead to tangible change? The protesters’ cause is serious, the threat is very real, the message is important and urgent. But is it not getting through to the public?

Sixty years ago, Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and multiplied Marilyn Monroe screen-prints exposed modern repetition as an ideal of mindlessness – an inescapable capitalist pattern ingrained in the oversaturated modes of production and consumption that distract and overwhelm while nurturing an irreducible sense of modern apathy. How many times is too many? Repetition is a complex phenomenon: it can deepen or hollow out experiences depending on how it is deployed. Repeated ad libitum anything shocking quickly becomes commonplace. Aware of the risk, good artists try not to repeat themselves; instead they strive to constantly reinvent. From Friedrich Nietzsche to Søren Kierkegaard, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Mark Fisher, Frantz Fanon, Robert Hughes, and Amia Srinivasan, modern thinkers have dwelled extensively on the all-pervasive pacifying powers of unwitting repetitiveness. The shock of the new quickly melts into the air.

Tomato soup splashed on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and mashed potatoes hurled at Monet’s Haystacks – the activists of Last Generation and Just Stop Oil want us to listen. Their objective is to save us from succumbing to the mundane, capitalist-induced apathy that has distorted our value scale. “What is more important? Art or the right to healthy, sustainable food?” shouted two Riposte Alimentaire protesters after splashing the Mona Lisa with pumpkin soup last month.

But the infamous protests involving glue, paint, and food-throwing are just the tip of the iceberg. These activist groups routinely engage in genuinely significant endeavours, much of which is disregarded by the media for lack of sensationalism. Protest after protest, awareness of this media bias has led anticapitalist demonstrators into an attention-seeking trap: they are now caught in the same repetitive cycles of capitalist-induced torpor that they sought to release us all from.

A study by Apollo Academic Surveys in 2023 showed that while disruptive tactics can certainly aid some causes, they often fall short of generating change when there are issues with high awareness but low support. Look no further than the endless stream of vilifying comments on social media platforms to witness how these protests have negatively affected public opinion. And, since fighting the climate crisis is a collective effort, the seriousness of this public alienation should not be underestimated. A study published by climatologist Michael E Mann in 2022 showed that, as a result of the protests, most people felt less inclined to join environmental efforts than before.

The museum protests have quickly turned environmental activists into an oil company’s dream. Could it be that the activists who so desperately want to be heard aren’t listening to us?

This disconnect with the public is caused by a misalignment between the protest site, message, and intended target that is deeply rooted in historical misconceptions and a misplaced trust in the romantic myth of the heroic saviour. Often, those who fiercely defend the throwing of food at paintings cite suffragette Mary Richardson’s 1914 slashing of Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus as proof that similar tactics work. While this historical event certainly caught the attention of the press, art historians have pointed out that Richardson’s action negatively affected public opinion and that the museum attacks that followed alienated more people than they converted to the cause: how effective they were in advancing the suffrage cause, or whether they actually hindered it, is hard to determine. But what certainly played a key role in the suffragettes’ success was their concerted effort; one clearly focused on a specific and tangible goal.

After years of seeing the same trick performed over and over, the latest pumpkin soup assault on the Mona Lisa felt redundant, if not downright pathetic. It’s time to employ truly effective tactics; activist groups now must find new ways to manipulate media attention instead of letting the media paint them into a corner. Alternative successful models are right under the activists’ noses. In 2016, oil protesters ended BP’s 26-year-long financing of Tate galleries by organising a broad range of highly imaginative and creative performances, events, and sit-ins at Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Nan Goldin’s campaign against the big pharma Sackler family has also proven incredibly effective, with many institutions cutting ties with them and removing their name from gallery walls.

These demonstrations have been successful because they are focused and specific; the objectives have been clearly matched to the targeted institutions and the ethical problems they face. These protests educate without accusing or confronting museum visitors. The pressure is applied exactly where it hurts and everyone listens. Despite some preposterous and self-congratulatory claims that the non-violent protests have “reactivated” otherwise passive works of art, environmental activists have mostly used museums as soapboxes and artworks as megaphone speakers. It is no coincidence that social media comments regularly invite activists to stop protesting in museums and escalate the targeting of oil company headquarters instead. Perhaps it’s about time protesters started listening to museum visitors instead of repeating the same unfruitful tactic?

Cover photo: ‘Activists are now caught in the same repetitive cycles of capitalist-induced torpor that they sought to release us all from’ … two Riposte Alimentaire protesters splash the Mona Lisa with soup. Photograph: David Cantiniaux/AFP TV/AFP/Getty Images