On Thursday, climate activists vandalized a well-known Degas artwork at a Washington museum by painting its Plexiglas casing.
According to the National Gallery of Art, paint stripes in the colors red and black were applied to the wax sculpture of the French artist’s “La petite danseuse de quatorze ans.”
One of the first of its sort in North America, the event.
The “of inestimable value” art was taken out of the exhibition rooms, the gallery said in a statement to AFP, to be inspected for any damage.
The gallery issued a statement saying, “We categorically denounce this physical attack on one of our works of art,” and added that the FBI was helping in the investigation.
Attack is related to global warming, according to activists.
In a video posted by The Washington Post, an activist in her 50s can be heard saying, “We need our leaders to take serious action to tell the truth about what is happening to the climate. My hands are covered in the red paint used on the glass and the base of Edgar Degas’ work.”
Declare Emergency, the group that claimed responsibility for the action, posted on Instagram, “Today, through nonviolent rebellion, we temporarily defiled a work of art to evoke the very real children whose suffering is certain if deadly fossil fuel companies continue to mine coal, oil, and gas from the soil.”
It exhorted President Joe Biden to issue a climate emergency proclamation.
The general population is unaware of the organization. It claimed that one of its activists had been arrested but quickly freed by the police.
Environmental activists intensified their attacks on pieces of art in the autumn of 2022, mostly in Europe, in an effort to raise awareness of global warming.
They bonded their hands to a Goya artwork in Madrid, tossed tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London, and spread mashed potatoes all over a Claude Monet masterpiece in Potsdam, which is close to Berlin.
