On Thursday, a Picasso painting on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was splashed with bright pink paint by an environmental activist, in the latest of such attempts to draw attention to the accelerating climate crisis.
Footage posted on social media by the climate activist group Last Generation Canada shows the moment the protesters hurled the paint at the portrait, a 1901 work by Pablo Picasso titled L’hetaire. The protester is then seen being escorted out of the gallery by a member of museum security. The Instagram post includes a statement from the protestor, identified by the group as a 21-year-old named Marcel.
“Today, I am not attacking art, nor am I destroying it. I am protecting it. Art, at its core, is depictions of life. It is by the living, for the living. There is no art on a dead planet,” the statement reads.
Specifically cited in the statement was Winnipeg, a large city in the Canadian province of Manitoba which, along with parts of Saskatchewan, are currently experiencing a record-breaking heat wave. In recent weeks, Canadian officials have warned that the uncharacteristically hot and dry weather will exacerbate the severity of wildfires this summer across the Canadian provinces, as thousands have already fled the blazes.
“[W]ere I in Winnipeg right now, would I still be able to make art,” the Last Generation statement added. “Would I have the time, the energy, the resources? Or would I be too caught up in a fight for my survival and well-being, because my government refuses to protect its own people.”
Montreal police confirmed to the Independent that the activist had been arrested, and later released to appear in court at a later date. The two individuals who filmed the vandalism were detained before being released without charge, police said in a statement.
Over the last five years, famous artworks on display in public museums in Western Europe and the United States have become popular targets by climate groups, including various chapters of Last Generation and the UK-based coalition known as Just Stop Oil (the latter being best known for protests aimed at the British Museum in London). The effectiveness of strategies that target artworks—among them works by Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Degas—has divided public opinion and, in some cases, resulted in grave legal consequences for the demonstrators.
Last August, Last Generation Austria, the activist chapter behind a highly-publicized incident involving a Gustav Klimt painting at Vienna’s Leopold Art Museum, disbanded, citing “ignorance, death threats, and fines amounting to tens of thousands of euros.
“We no longer see any prospect of success,” the group said, adding that the remaining funds it had received will be used to cover outstanding legal expenses.
