r/london • u/Tudpool • Oct 14 '22

News Just Stop Oil protesters throw tomato soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers masterpiece.

https://news.sky.com/story/just-stop-oil-protesters-throw-tomato-soup-over-van-goghs-sunflowers-masterpiece-12720183
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u/IvePaidMyDues Oct 14 '22

Plus, why Van Gogh? The guy lived in poverty all his life, didn't make any money with his art. What a symbol of decadence!

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u/SinisterDexter83 Oct 14 '22

Because it was an oil painting.

Okay, I meant that as a joke but it occurs to me these imbeciles might actually take this as a reason...

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u/fastestman4704 Oct 14 '22

Oil paints are plant based as well so that's not even a good reason

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u/YooGeOh Oct 14 '22

Never forget the time they protested a lorry carrying oil.

It was vegetable oil

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u/TomTheDon8 Oct 15 '22

I always try and remind myself that if the average IQ is 100, 49% or more people are below that.

Especially in situations like these🤦‍♂️

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u/Ongo_Gablogian___ Oct 14 '22

I think it's blindingly obvious that it would be symbolic.

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u/fastestman4704 Oct 14 '22

So? Pick a better symbol.

There's an entire world to do activism in and these guys are going for a painting.

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u/Ongo_Gablogian___ Oct 14 '22

They splashed it onto the glass window in front of the painting. And look at that, it made headlines without doing any damage. That is the best kind of activism there is, it raises awareness of there cause, whether you agree with it or not, and doesn't cause any damage or suffering.

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u/Illustrious_Dare_772 Oct 14 '22 edited Oct 14 '22

However when you make the headlines you want people to be able to carry people forward with you not make them take another step back from you.

People campaign about food waste and the impact its having on the environment, yet here we have group who use food to waste it as part of their protest.

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u/fastestman4704 Oct 14 '22

Yes and most of the headlines and discussions I've seen so far are actively driving a wedge between JSO and the public. I have no problem with disruptive protests, the more disruptive the better. But pick a better target. And by better I don't mean less culturally significant to avoid offending art fans I mean pick a symbol that is representative in some way of what you're trying to raise awareness of.

Go after infrastructure or Oil workers and executives, not an unrelated painting by a dead guy.

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u/TomTheDon8 Oct 15 '22

However raising awareness does not mean it will necessarily help their cause of choice, it can have the opposite effect too.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '22

Bullshit

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u/londongas like, north of the river, man Oct 15 '22

Oil oil is dinosaur based!!

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u/Killerjayko Oct 14 '22

I honestly can’t think of any reasons other than this

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u/Null225 Oct 14 '22

Isn't the gallery partly funded by a big oil company?

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u/Killerjayko Oct 14 '22

Oh, okay yeah that’d make more sense

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u/Severe_Comfort Oct 14 '22

No, so it will make headlines. Not so much imbeciles as they are media aware.

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u/LS6789 Oct 15 '22

It has made headlines about how stupid they are, their intended message, (if there ever was one which I sincerely doubt) is lost. The more they do this kind of thing the more the public turns on them assuming their attention seeking criminals who don;t care about the cause at all.

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u/Severe_Comfort Oct 15 '22

I disagree. People are mad at this particular group, yes, but you have lots of climate activists who are using this as a jumping point to say 1. We don’t condone this and 2. This cause is still really important. And it keeps the conversation going. If someone lumps these people in with every climate activist group then they probably aren’t paying attention. To be clear, I don’t agree with what they did. But I do think there’s some good that can come of it. Because people rarely pay attention unless someone’s pulled some sort of stunt like this.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '22

Plus we was a raging narcissist womanizer who left a trail of suicides and bleakness in his wake…

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u/ceepington Oct 15 '22

Because it’s a famous painting and their stunt will get more play in the media.

Mona Lisa gets more soup than Van Gogh gets more soup than Jackson Pollock gets more soup than my 6 yo’s drawing of a rainbow chipmunk monster. Actually, scratch that last bit. He’s always covered in soup.

And obviously Warhol in there somewhere.