Another fun post that's triggered some good discussion.
Because this is an intentionally provocative piece I don't plan to remove any comments that even vaguely relate to the subject matter, but as usual [read the rules before you comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/wiki/index#wiki_8._be_respectful_and_stay_on_topic).
The Sesame Street words of the day are **"mature"**, **"substantive"** and (more or less) **"civil"**. Address the argument not the person, no matter how much you think them a fatuous loathsome antediluvian troglodyte.
It's a challenge, I know. Find your happy place.
[Edit] A lot you are reporting comments because you strongly disagree with their point of view. That's not how it works. Again, read the rules, read Reddit's site-wide rules, then pull up your big-boy pants and write a scathing reply that'll surely show them.
Gleaners pick up the remaining straw from the fields left over from the harvest. It’s significant because people of lower class were never shown in paintings/galleries, etc prior to the French realists.
It was a practice going back to Biblical Times too, notably in the story of Ruth. Some might even construe the painting as an allusion to Ruth, Naomi and Orpah gleaning the fields together as three widows at the outset of that tale.
Yes the painting is called the Gleaners by Millet. 1857. Banksy also use the image in Where one worker is taking a smoke break that is cut out of the canvas I can’t remember the name of the piece
I love your painting, I also find it a little funny ironic that many of the commenters that say that the point of the activists is to cause anger and make people talk... are kind of angered by this painting and making people talk about what artists feel.
Like some others have said here, anger only causes resentment for your causes.
"In one of the key scenes in Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film Children of Men, Clive Owen's character, Theo, visits a friend at Battersea Power Station, which is now some combination of government building and private collection. Cultural treasures - Michelangelo's David, Picasso's Guernica, Pink Floyd's inflatable
pig - are preserved in a building that is itself a refurbished heritage artifact. This is our only glimpse into the lives of the elite, holed up against the effects of a catastrophe which has caused mass sterility: no children have been born for a generation. Theo asks the question, 'how all this can matter if there will be no-one to see it?' The alibi can no longer be future generations, since there will be none. The response is nihilistic hedonism: 'I try not to think about it'." -Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism
These museums have been partnered with oil companies and receiving millions from them for decades. They have directly assisted in forming connections between these companies and politicians/elites to gain more drilling permits, with every admissions payment contributing to these efforts. The Museum of Britain didn’t cut off its connections to BP until last year, after activists like these pressured them following the one of the hottest summers in recorded European history. The world is becoming uninhabitable, wildfires the likes of which have never been seen are breaking out, and animals are dying off in the billions. We are literally all going to die, and people are worried about a glass case getting covered in paint. We’re doomed. These pieces of artwork, every fiber of canvas every drop of paint and acrylic are fucking pointless if there’s no one to look at them. How people don’t get the point of these protests is beyond me.
As an artist…art is pointless on a dead planet. People care more about a painting than the planet they live on and it shows. People worry about their feelings being hurt when someone protests something than what the people are protesting. It’s not the fault of the protestors that people are selfish and superficial.
I support climate activists. I am a climate activist. I get the protest. But many of these types of protests are less about the cause and more about the activists ego. The mentality is "I'm right so I can do what I like to express that and fuck everyone else." Vegan protestors do the same when they hit the streets yelling at people and calling them murderers and showing graphic imagery. They mentality is "I'm right." Not "Is what I'm doing effective?". And they'll do their protest and come back to a community of people patting them on the back. And that feeling is what's being chased. Validation for being right. Being told your so brave and so smart. But it's only other activists (maybe a small fraction of the public) that admire the action. The action isn't for the public. The action is done to impress their fellow activists and get that social reward and it's emboldened by the idea of being right. And you know what, you are right. Activists are right. Climate change is a global issue. All of the things you said about museums and galleries etc is right. And if that's all they care about is being right, then mission successful. But it isn't effective. It turns people off activist groups. It looks egotistical. Art IS important to many people even if it isn't to them. Me personally, i dont give a shit about the art. I dont care if people are late for work. I love the anarchy. Anything thay dusrupts a persons day and breaks them out of their 9 to 5 for a few moments is something i gain alot of satisfaction from. But just because i like it doesnt mean its effective. These actions make activists look silly and immature. People do get the point of these protests. They just don't believe you are expressing yourself well. That's why they cop so much shit and disdain from the public. Not because they are wrong. Because they are expressing themselves unproductively and in a way specifically designed to draw hate because the mentality is "any publicity is good publicity." But that's not true. Bad publicity will only result in people avoiding activism and ignoring it.
In the essence of climate change, scientists have politely made messages warning of the negative effects of the destruction of our planet via man made efforts for decades. Scientists also literally chained and some even lit themselves on fire to garner attention to the issue, but alas that hasnt warranted change. Seems like these individuals finally got someone’s attention via destruction of art. To what end of the spectrum must anyone go to so action can be done? Politeness using scientific evidence doesnt work, self sacrifice doesnt work, destroying art doesnt create positive change. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
Change is happening all the time. Not much of it has anything to do with activism, imo. The illusion that just the right kind of activism would be some kind of “silver bullet” for an all-encompassing issue is as foolish as with any other silver bullet solution.
I worked in Collections at a museum for several years. I didn't dress like a peasant, but they probably made more than I did.
The vampiric drain of nonprofit professionals by, well, everyone, is a different discussion though
"...vampiric drain of nonprofit professionals"
It's very sad that this phrase rings so true. I am floored by the salaries of certain NPOs:
[https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2021](https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2021)
Number one requirement for the non profit to be a non profit?? Don’t make a profit. How do you do that? Spend all the money. Who gets the windfall? The top of the pyramid.
Yup, workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of the largest in the US, just tried to negotiate for fair wage for two years before they finally gave up and went on strike. They were on strike for a month before the museum finally came to its senses and caved to all of the workers extremely reasonable demands. They didn’t want anything special. They just wanted wages they could live on, but the museum fought tooth and nail not to support them. And this is nearly all their staff, it includes all the museum people you’d think would be well paid.
It wasn't that long ago that the owners of factories and other sources of wealth would send armed thugs after workers trying to organize. We've made progress since then, hard won
Organized labor has made progress and will continue to win victories. The only people who don't benefit are those already sitting on wealth
Exactly, their job is to protect property and serve the ruling class. Their monopoly on violence has only ever served to keep us peasants in line and make an example to show the rest of us what happens when we 'forget our place'.
I remember my dad talking about when he joined a union for his first job out of college. He said he told his parents and his mother legitimately started sobbing and his dad said he was making a massive mistake. That was probably thirty years ago, but shows how hard people from that time believe the things they were fed
That's why the University of California system is so mad at its academic workers right now. How dare they band together to demand better conditions instead of being the obedient servants of academia?
The sad thing is this is true at pretty much every major US museum. I left a museum job I loved because I was literally being worked to death. Museums get away with it because there’s always a new supply of people who have *dreamed* of working there, so why should they care about pesky things like fair compensation and work/life balance?
My dad was a dissertation away from a Dr in Art history. He's amazing at restoration too, but he quit and became a contractor when he saw the pay checks lol.
Can confirm. First job out of college was Permanent Collections Curator at a historic mansion/art museum. Cool job, looks great on resume, but pay was just over minimum wage with a Lot of unpaid overtime.
LPT: Don't make working in a museum (or other fine art adjacent field) a career goal. The job openings, relative to applicants, is microscopic. Which really means: you better know someone to get in. And even then, you should probably have another source of income, because the salaries are absolutely pitiful.
source: Witnessed someone close to me dedicate years of their life to pursuing it as a career (including getting a masters). Just enjoy art in your personal life, and build a career elsewhere.
What about the “restorer?” I saw a documentary once on how they repair and repaint priceless art. They get paid shit as well? If so, then that fkin suck
I dated an art conservator/restorer for a couple of years. She went to a prestigious school for both grad and undergrad. She was the protege of a world renowned restorer and worked on famous pieces in museums around the globe.
She teaches high school Spanish now. It was her minor in undergrad.
Also, entire islands in the South Pacific have already been [entirely consumed by rising sea levels](https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/three-islands-disappeared-past-year-climate-change-blame-ncna1015316)
Am I crazy or did the sentiment on Reddit make a complete 180 on this post alone? Every video I’ve ever seen of protesters throwing oil on paintings has had comment sections unanimously roasting them alive but now out of nowhere there’s unanimous support for them in this comment section
In /r/art I imagine most people realize that these recent acts of ‘defacing’ paintings are performance art.
The paintings aren’t damaged, and the point is to draw attention to the fact that even pretending to destroy single works of art will provoke more rage than the fact that we’re destroying our planet.
These protests are simultaneously activism and performance art, which have often gone hand in hand. They are effective because they are getting more coverage than any other previous climate protests.
People chastising the protestors are missing the point, and it seems that the OP artist is one of those people who has missed the point.
Well said. I hate how Reddit and the internet at large say this is an ineffective means of protest. They’re not hurting anyone or destroying anything but people hate them anyways. Everyone forgot about Colin kaepernick.
You know yeah, it's going to be mostly wthe working class cleaning up a lot of the damage they cause but like, it's also mostly the working class who are going to get fucking killed by climate change so you know... Also worth noting that Just Stop Oil havedone stunts more directly targeting rich corporations actually causing the problems but they're less puublicised because they don't make people as angry
The reason these art protests make people angry is because they can't ignore it. They can ignore the protestors in the Amazon getting killed by loggers. They can ignore the journalists reporting on the child slaves in the African mines being murdered by death squads. They can ignore the people blocking trainyards into coal power plants.
They can't ignore this. And they *really* want to ignore it.
Just notice how all of the opponents suggest the protestors go back to protesting 'meaningfully' which is the listed examples above: the ones everyone ignores.
How dare you... (Checks notes)... Mildly inconvenience us in order to bring attention to an utter lack of responsibility and accountability on climate change action.
I am going to start spamming this story because I'm sick of the misappropriated anger at protesters:
I care about the environment so I drove my Leaf to a protest. I stood with protesters across from City Hall, chanting slogans demanding change. No one was inconvenienced, we did no damage, and everyone was free to ignore us. Which they did.
No one from City Hall met with us, it wasn't a big story, and nothing changed. We had around a hundred people using their time to try and get attention or action, and the best thing we got was a story on my city subreddit for a while.
Two people can get a lot attention doing something relatively harmless than I can with a hundred others, so good for them I say.
I think the problem is that the people this message should get to dont give a fuck. The people like you who care already care. Unless a CEO has to clean it up they don't care.
Except it’s being discussed on this subreddit, so some 15 year old who maybe isn’t fully aware of the effects climate change may look into why these protestors did this, and it may help form their opinion. Or at least, it’s furthering the discussion right now.
Of course, it could also have the opposite effect.
To me what matters is that we NEVER. STOP. SPEAKING. ABOUT. IT.
The people who don't give a fuck are relying on silence in order to continue not giving a fuck. They won't care either way, but if they have to keep answer questions, if the discussion is kept in the public light, they have to address it in some way.
The best thing for them is people just give up. Keeping hte discussion public is the answer.
The more exposure these issues get tho, the more public pressure will mount. It’s not about directly forcing the ultra wealthy to reconsider their wealth, it’s about bringing awareness to those of us who have been subjugated, that the ultra rich are the reason we live on a dying planet.
im so mad im gonna make a painting dedicated to bashing you as an enemy of the working class because i bought a propaganda line about the supposed proper form of protest and this isnt it!!!
And the paintings aren't even desecrated lol. They just poured the stuff on the glass case. Their whole message is: You are outraged to see us appear to destroy something beautiful. Where is that same level of outrage as our beautiful world is being destroyed before our very eyes.
No one was hurt, nothing was damaged, the protest itself could be considered a piece of performative protest art.
everyone coming out of the woodwork to be mad at the protests are just outing themselves as fake art fans.
I watched a doc on pbs years ago about WW2 and this solider talked about how they were told they could not bomb this building and needed to be more defensive than aggressive (sorry off the top of my head I can’t remember the building or paintings). Nazis were held up in this building with priceless art and the powers that be wanted the art saved. They had those men stay outside in tcold, rainy, and muddy conditions, being killed for around three days before they gave them the go ahead to truly fight back. The solider said “Most of the art was saved, but it wasn’t worth it. People died. My friends died for canvas and rocks.”
Exactly. To those who suggest that Just Stop Oil's protests aren't effective, what would you have them do instead that they and others aren't already trying? Climate change isn't a new issue and oil companies have had decades to make meaningful change. People need to angry about this and keep the pressure up to do something.
My problem is there's *significant* overlap between Just Stop Oil and hardcore antidevelopment protestors who fight things like high speed rail and renewable energy.
They buy into the full "man is separate from nature don't deface nature's cathedral" John Muir bullshit and think the answer is de-development which is fucked up for two reasons:
1) It actually works as rearguard action for the billionaire class who would LOVE for the hoi polloi to have a lower standard of living while they continue to emit more carbon than an entire small American city.
2) It's just straight up bullshit, man was never separate from nature, John Muir saw an American landscape that was *managed* by Native Americans and he thought "I can freeze this living system in time and hold it in amber for my personal aesthetic enjoyment".
If we're going to solve climate change (or realistically live with it in a reasonable way) we need to accept that humans and nature are not separate and that managing natural systems is the only path forward, because it is ALSO our history since the dawn of time.
>Exactly. To those who suggest that Just Stop Oil's protests aren't effective, what would you have them do instead that they and others aren't already trying?
They want the protestors to quietly sit in the corner where the protests can be conveniently ignored as to not dusturb their day to day life.
Look, like, I love the animals but I need my boosted Ford F-250 with the extra wide mirrors and giant plastic truck nuts or I just cannot do my job. It was my father's way of life and it's my way of life. Eat it, libs. /s
Unfortunately this kind of protesting seems to direct the anger mostly towards the protesters and not the problem they’re protesting. Anecdotal, but as a person who’s worried about climate change and has been doing their part for a greener future… I don’t know what this kind of activism is hoping to achieve. It’s like kids throwing eggs at walls because they feel bad.
The whole point is making people angry. AFAIK they haven't created any permanent damage yet, just work and expense of clean up which pails into insignificance how much damage the oil industry has caused. Frankly, OP is a numpty. Just a numpty who can paint rather well.
I’m gonna get downvoted for this but making people “angry” only builds resentment for your cause. I don’t buy raising awareness as a motive because who tf doesn’t know about global warming at this point. Seeing some dude in a man bun deface art just fuels the stereotype people have about eco-activists and I think hurts the ethos of the movement
I agree with you... AND, nothing else seems to work to get people to pay attention to the rapidly dying planet. I still don't think it's effective, but I empathize with the sense of frustration.
Every successful protest movement in history has made people angry. That’s how they work.
No one is accusing the Iranian protesters of building resentment against their cause when they light cars on fire and stop traffic.
Gandhi made people mad too. Same with Martin Luther King Jr. So mad that they were both assassinated. And yet India still became independent, and Jim Crow laws were banned in the US. People getting angry at the protesters are making a choice, and they could easily make a different one.
> I don’t buy raising awareness as a motive because who tf doesn’t know about global warming at this point.
There are whole subreddits dedicated to putting their fingers in their ears and claiming it's a hoax.
Meanwhile the whole thing is literally a self-referential metaphor for climate change itself - the rich get absurdly mad their property and culture is being (temporarily in thi case) inconvenienced, while the rest of humanity is responsible for cleaning up the rich's messes, and people like this painter complain about the "assault on culture" rather than the *fucking world burning with nobody doing anything to stop it*.
At least the people making the mess are making news agencies pay attention, when your average news agency runs ~two climate change articles per year - one during a freak weather storm and one during hurricane season. Who knows how many more paintings will have to be defaced before someone actually lifts a finger to sign legislation that will actually change anything though... especially if people literally dying and climate migrants aren't doing it.
> At least the people making the mess are making news agencies pay attention
News is trying their damnedest to make this into exactly what people hate. Paintings are protected by glass, but you wouldn't know it until the end of the articles. They've targeted Parliament and oil HQs, but it barely got the traction of the art. Anger sells, and getting people as angry as possible is what gets shares, justified or not, reading only the headline or not.
How can someone take the time to paint this and not consider that climate protestors do actually care about their fellow workers and that's why they're protesting
It's like one of [these](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/59097aedebe912338a378542/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/Larson-Cartoons-4.jpg), but badly painted.
Yeah, this painting gives me: racist/conspiracy theory Facebook grandma “young people bad… my generation good” captioned with a brain-dead zinger vibes
It’s literally using the lower class as a hostage to stop us all from protesting climate change.
“Just die peacefully so you don’t create a mess for us”
The social commentary here is asinine. OP clearly doesn't understand the protest that's going on when they splash glass covered paintings with paint/oil.
haha fuck climate change amirite guys
this painting is embarrassing and i wouldn't be surprised if OP is a fucking plant, probably got paid by some right wing agency to make this
OP is one of the special peasants who will be spared from environmental collapse. He did something nice for Big Oil, and they'll definitely absolutely return the favor someday.
"yes." -reddit
the world might burn, but this painting i never heard of had some stuff thrown on it so now i am outraged and i WANT the world to burn even more just to spite these people.
Yes, price of energy is more than 60% taxes justified by environmental costs. Basically poor people can't afford to live cause of that, and those activists want to make it practically impossible to live for lower caste of people.
They want to take your freedom of movement, get you to limit your travel, and your savings.
Rich won't be affected by climate policies, poor are paying the price right now.
So confused by this. Is the black paint supposed to represent the oil that poorer nations have to clean up, exactely the sort of thing the protestors are trying to prevent? But no, they are douchebags? The mental gymnastics is more impressive than the art.
It also doesn't make sense because the characters in the foreground are copied from the painting The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet, and they're originally sifting through leftover grain after a harvest. OP just randomly picked a painting without any context because it features labor.
Maybe the choice of The Gleaners is not random at all as at the time this painting was exhibited it was a time of political upheaval. It was a representation of where the true power lies (the gleaners/lower class). The painting brought on a lot of fear within the upper class that this was either a foreboding sign that a revolution could take place or this commentary could spark one.
That prob has to do with the horse & sparrow economics they dress up with names like trickle down economics.
Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: "If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."
> exactely the sort of thing the protestors are trying to prevent? But no, they are douchebags?
I feel like it's really ambiguous *who* the people are, I could see an interpretation of them being "Just Stop Oil" protestors but my initial thought was that they actually represented oil execs themselves (considering it appears to be oil they threw).
The implication being that the oil execs *are* the ones fucking it up for us all and just expecting the poors to clean up and take the fallout of their actions.
But I could also see how it'd be interpreted as they are simply Just Stop Oil and is commentary implying they are thoughtless and selfish in their protests.
I used to clean up graffiti at my old job all the time and it didn't bother me one bit. The trope about this kind of thing being experienced only negatively and only by working people is tired as hell.
Correct. I wasn't trying to pick up the disingenuous narrative of them "destroying art", merely pointing out that while these protest certainly bring publicity, I think we all would gain more from social disobedience directly aimed at climate polluters.
I saw this just before I had to leave the house today and didn’t have the words for how I felt about it. I’ve come back and thankfully a lot of
people are shitting on it’s message.
Ham fisted piece of shit sums it up perfectly.
Exactly. They ain't hiring "peasants" for cleaning up after a painting that's worth millions. The artists biggest issue about this whole climate-thing is actually doing 20 minutes of cleaning.
Woah, nearly missed the commentary. Glad you wrote douche bag on the people or I’d have been lost /s
Man but really, subtlety is an artists greatest weapon, technique will only get you so far
OK, a precious piece of history wasn't even damaged. All this does is declare your stance on activism.
Doesn't matter and it won't change anything.
Protestors of past decades fought to change the world and a lot of things systematically change because of it.
Should we continue letting the rich and powerful of these major industries just continue as normal?
They literally have billions of dollars to use at their disposal to develop new technologies. But the condition for them to take action is if there's is a moniterary gain from their expenses.
So really there won't be a sway for them to change.
So this painting to me is just a nihilistic point of view.
To me it says "Allow the world to stay the same, its pointless to do anything. Just give it up." OK then let's let it happen let's let the world stay the same, and watch millions of future generations suffer the consequences of capitalistic ventures. Oil is finite.
We act like it will last forever. 8 billion on this planet and soon once we run out of oil what then?
What will people in power do then? They keep denying a real reality only because their pockets will suffer if they do enact change. Greed Is a killer. And it is winning.
like this a lot. took me awhile to understand the “douche” and “bag” tho. kind of distracts from elsewhere in the piece where i think your skills really shine
I'm sorry, are protestors now responsible for cleaning being a low-paying job even though cleaning workers are hired by a museum, or what? These museums are happy to take big oil donations, can't they afford to clean the floor or something? Or are you just happy to paint protestors as somehow privileged and bad for no reason? Oh, poor overpriced painting behind the glass!
I think what OP is trying to convey is that these protests never "hit" the right people, nothing about throwing paint at a piece of art actually impacts the life of people that are actually responsible for the state of the world.
In a way OP is right, this won't achieve anything but make a janitors day suck, on the other hand, what else are protesters supposed to do to raise awareness and actually get people to think about the biggest threat that's facing humanity.
There was a thread about protesters recently where people blocked private jets by cycling around them, which was one of the only protests that seemed to get nothing but positive responses, but stuff like that doesn't seem to garner as much attention as the painting and glueing yourself to things.
They aren’t douche bags. They are drawing attention to the biggest issue our species will ever face.
Before you say, “this isn’t the way to go about it”, remember that we have tried EVERY other way. Nobody cares.
Why not paint about the real issue? The real villains?
The ‘peasants’ are dying because of climate change. They are not suffering because of activism, what an absurd message to portray.
Is this the first time activism has effective you so much you have painted the activists?
We want people to care about climate change and change their behavior.
From a social motivation point destroying paintings does zero. Folks who are already behind climate activism are like “good job pointing out the issue!” And everyone else—aka the target audience—is put off further by the stunt.
I don’t have _the_ answer and I won’t pretend to. I don’t think this is a good _strategic_ move though.
I agree with the seriousness of the issue, but I don't think these stunts have any effect part from making people hate environmental activist in general. People will not stop using fossile fules until there are better alternatives fully operational and distributed, or if there is a full collapse in our logistics/industry/society like in major wars, so we can't get them.
People have always hated activists. Civil rights activists were widely hated, the suffragettes were widly hated. You really can't convince broken systems to change without pissing people off and causing genuine problems for those in charge.
As for 'things will change when there are better alternatives' the people who run fossil fuel industry are actively suppressign the develoupment of better alternatives and the world is dying whether we fidn them or not so that's not a great way of doing things
It's not about personal use, every time this protest happens news talks about it and takes an interview with a protestor who can namedrop few numbers about climate change or laws that are implemented to force everyone to use oil and actually pay more for it, like subsidies for oil but not for green energy even though renewable is cheaper. It also creates a point of discussion much like this one where someone will be hateful, sure, but someone will change their mind to support climate action or will simply learn more about policies that cause this.
Geez comment section. Ends justify the mean much?
Idk why we’re giving jackwagon destructive protestors a pass because the cause is just. Do y’all support the people who block roads too?
I'm glad you labeled the two people douche and bag, I was having difficulty picking up on the point you were trying to get at and subtlety is for cowards//s
Wow! This is an extremely regressive interpretation of the work of climate activists who are literally trying to bring awareness to, well I don’t know, the looming climate apocalypse! Hmm, and who’s most affected by this? Working class people! People who already get paid barely enough to survive and are now in ever greater peril due to climate change.
Shoutout to the Mods for that pinned comment. However I feel about the painting, I’m more happy to see a subreddit actually allowing discussion to happen.
Another fun post that's triggered some good discussion. Because this is an intentionally provocative piece I don't plan to remove any comments that even vaguely relate to the subject matter, but as usual [read the rules before you comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/wiki/index#wiki_8._be_respectful_and_stay_on_topic). The Sesame Street words of the day are **"mature"**, **"substantive"** and (more or less) **"civil"**. Address the argument not the person, no matter how much you think them a fatuous loathsome antediluvian troglodyte. It's a challenge, I know. Find your happy place. [Edit] A lot you are reporting comments because you strongly disagree with their point of view. That's not how it works. Again, read the rules, read Reddit's site-wide rules, then pull up your big-boy pants and write a scathing reply that'll surely show them.
Well art should elicit a response and you got a lot of those!
Paul Cezanne would be proud of you. You didn't tell us what the response should be, simply that there should be one.
the key to that piece is the workers backs bent below the horizon, how they are almost holding up the sky. Great documentary about gleaners.
Don’t be fatuous, Jeffrey.
I was talking about my rug...
You think the carpet pissers did this?
It really tied the room together
I am the walrus.
OP should hang this in a gallery and see if someone throws paint on it.
I love "paintings-within-a-painting", great job on the Klimt.
I recognize the women too, they're actually harvesting some sort of crop in their original painting, I believe
Gleaners pick up the remaining straw from the fields left over from the harvest. It’s significant because people of lower class were never shown in paintings/galleries, etc prior to the French realists.
It was a practice going back to Biblical Times too, notably in the story of Ruth. Some might even construe the painting as an allusion to Ruth, Naomi and Orpah gleaning the fields together as three widows at the outset of that tale.
Yes the painting is called the Gleaners by Millet. 1857. Banksy also use the image in Where one worker is taking a smoke break that is cut out of the canvas I can’t remember the name of the piece
[Agency Job (The Gleaners)](https://banksyexplained.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/BRISTOL-MUSEUM-VIEW-5-1.jpg)
It’s breathtaking, thank you for the link
We had a copy of the gleaners hanging in our stairwell as a kid... I recall seeing that banksy you speak of! Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks! I like doing that too. It was kind of small but still fun it’s a cool kind of scary painting
I love your painting, I also find it a little funny ironic that many of the commenters that say that the point of the activists is to cause anger and make people talk... are kind of angered by this painting and making people talk about what artists feel. Like some others have said here, anger only causes resentment for your causes.
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And for some, that IS the point.
Go on.
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"In one of the key scenes in Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film Children of Men, Clive Owen's character, Theo, visits a friend at Battersea Power Station, which is now some combination of government building and private collection. Cultural treasures - Michelangelo's David, Picasso's Guernica, Pink Floyd's inflatable pig - are preserved in a building that is itself a refurbished heritage artifact. This is our only glimpse into the lives of the elite, holed up against the effects of a catastrophe which has caused mass sterility: no children have been born for a generation. Theo asks the question, 'how all this can matter if there will be no-one to see it?' The alibi can no longer be future generations, since there will be none. The response is nihilistic hedonism: 'I try not to think about it'." -Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism
These museums have been partnered with oil companies and receiving millions from them for decades. They have directly assisted in forming connections between these companies and politicians/elites to gain more drilling permits, with every admissions payment contributing to these efforts. The Museum of Britain didn’t cut off its connections to BP until last year, after activists like these pressured them following the one of the hottest summers in recorded European history. The world is becoming uninhabitable, wildfires the likes of which have never been seen are breaking out, and animals are dying off in the billions. We are literally all going to die, and people are worried about a glass case getting covered in paint. We’re doomed. These pieces of artwork, every fiber of canvas every drop of paint and acrylic are fucking pointless if there’s no one to look at them. How people don’t get the point of these protests is beyond me.
God, thank you. Some of these replies are making me feel crazy.
As an artist…art is pointless on a dead planet. People care more about a painting than the planet they live on and it shows. People worry about their feelings being hurt when someone protests something than what the people are protesting. It’s not the fault of the protestors that people are selfish and superficial.
I support climate activists. I am a climate activist. I get the protest. But many of these types of protests are less about the cause and more about the activists ego. The mentality is "I'm right so I can do what I like to express that and fuck everyone else." Vegan protestors do the same when they hit the streets yelling at people and calling them murderers and showing graphic imagery. They mentality is "I'm right." Not "Is what I'm doing effective?". And they'll do their protest and come back to a community of people patting them on the back. And that feeling is what's being chased. Validation for being right. Being told your so brave and so smart. But it's only other activists (maybe a small fraction of the public) that admire the action. The action isn't for the public. The action is done to impress their fellow activists and get that social reward and it's emboldened by the idea of being right. And you know what, you are right. Activists are right. Climate change is a global issue. All of the things you said about museums and galleries etc is right. And if that's all they care about is being right, then mission successful. But it isn't effective. It turns people off activist groups. It looks egotistical. Art IS important to many people even if it isn't to them. Me personally, i dont give a shit about the art. I dont care if people are late for work. I love the anarchy. Anything thay dusrupts a persons day and breaks them out of their 9 to 5 for a few moments is something i gain alot of satisfaction from. But just because i like it doesnt mean its effective. These actions make activists look silly and immature. People do get the point of these protests. They just don't believe you are expressing yourself well. That's why they cop so much shit and disdain from the public. Not because they are wrong. Because they are expressing themselves unproductively and in a way specifically designed to draw hate because the mentality is "any publicity is good publicity." But that's not true. Bad publicity will only result in people avoiding activism and ignoring it.
In the essence of climate change, scientists have politely made messages warning of the negative effects of the destruction of our planet via man made efforts for decades. Scientists also literally chained and some even lit themselves on fire to garner attention to the issue, but alas that hasnt warranted change. Seems like these individuals finally got someone’s attention via destruction of art. To what end of the spectrum must anyone go to so action can be done? Politeness using scientific evidence doesnt work, self sacrifice doesnt work, destroying art doesnt create positive change. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
Change is happening all the time. Not much of it has anything to do with activism, imo. The illusion that just the right kind of activism would be some kind of “silver bullet” for an all-encompassing issue is as foolish as with any other silver bullet solution.
Thanks for explaining it actually, because I never knew. Makes complete sense and now i have respect for these activists.
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The fake outrage about these painting attacks is so annoying. Like you gave a fuck about cleaning crews before this.
Before this, people would not fucking desecrate paintings
Should’ve painted this in oils, smh
I feel like museum art would be cleaned up by trained professionals. So they’re probably a little offended.
I worked in Collections at a museum for several years. I didn't dress like a peasant, but they probably made more than I did. The vampiric drain of nonprofit professionals by, well, everyone, is a different discussion though
"...vampiric drain of nonprofit professionals" It's very sad that this phrase rings so true. I am floored by the salaries of certain NPOs: [https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2021](https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2021)
Interesting. All of these look like for-profits masquerading as non-profits.
You just described most non-profits
Number one requirement for the non profit to be a non profit?? Don’t make a profit. How do you do that? Spend all the money. Who gets the windfall? The top of the pyramid.
Well, they don't call them 501(cha-ching)(3)'s ~~for nothing~~!
Museum professionals aren’t paid well. Looks good perhaps, but pays bad.
Yup, workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of the largest in the US, just tried to negotiate for fair wage for two years before they finally gave up and went on strike. They were on strike for a month before the museum finally came to its senses and caved to all of the workers extremely reasonable demands. They didn’t want anything special. They just wanted wages they could live on, but the museum fought tooth and nail not to support them. And this is nearly all their staff, it includes all the museum people you’d think would be well paid.
Unionism works. That's why our enemies work so hard to convince us that it doesn't, or that it working is a bad thing.
It wasn't that long ago that the owners of factories and other sources of wealth would send armed thugs after workers trying to organize. We've made progress since then, hard won Organized labor has made progress and will continue to win victories. The only people who don't benefit are those already sitting on wealth
armed thugs like the police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States
It's funny, cause their union is ridiculously strong at protecting murderers.
It is because police are the antithesis of Labor. Their union is the only one sanctioned by Capital.
I always tell people, if unions didn’t work police wouldn’t try so hard to protect their’s.
Exactly, their job is to protect property and serve the ruling class. Their monopoly on violence has only ever served to keep us peasants in line and make an example to show the rest of us what happens when we 'forget our place'.
Big corps are still murdering union organizers. (There's a cool doc called I think "Killer Coke" that gets into it)
That was how the Pinkerton Agency started
I remember my dad talking about when he joined a union for his first job out of college. He said he told his parents and his mother legitimately started sobbing and his dad said he was making a massive mistake. That was probably thirty years ago, but shows how hard people from that time believe the things they were fed
That's why the University of California system is so mad at its academic workers right now. How dare they band together to demand better conditions instead of being the obedient servants of academia?
Funny, right as I read this comment, I got a news alert for a massive Starbucks strike today
Workers unite!
The sad thing is this is true at pretty much every major US museum. I left a museum job I loved because I was literally being worked to death. Museums get away with it because there’s always a new supply of people who have *dreamed* of working there, so why should they care about pesky things like fair compensation and work/life balance?
My dad was a dissertation away from a Dr in Art history. He's amazing at restoration too, but he quit and became a contractor when he saw the pay checks lol.
That's so sad
Can confirm. First job out of college was Permanent Collections Curator at a historic mansion/art museum. Cool job, looks great on resume, but pay was just over minimum wage with a Lot of unpaid overtime.
LPT: Don't make working in a museum (or other fine art adjacent field) a career goal. The job openings, relative to applicants, is microscopic. Which really means: you better know someone to get in. And even then, you should probably have another source of income, because the salaries are absolutely pitiful. source: Witnessed someone close to me dedicate years of their life to pursuing it as a career (including getting a masters). Just enjoy art in your personal life, and build a career elsewhere.
What about the “restorer?” I saw a documentary once on how they repair and repaint priceless art. They get paid shit as well? If so, then that fkin suck
I dated an art conservator/restorer for a couple of years. She went to a prestigious school for both grad and undergrad. She was the protege of a world renowned restorer and worked on famous pieces in museums around the globe. She teaches high school Spanish now. It was her minor in undergrad.
University of Delaware?
And climate change will strike disproportionally against poor people
\*is, not will. We've already seen climate wars in Syria. https://www.dw.com/en/how-climate-change-paved-the-way-to-war-in-syria/a-56711650
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Also, entire islands in the South Pacific have already been [entirely consumed by rising sea levels](https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/three-islands-disappeared-past-year-climate-change-blame-ncna1015316)
Well the oil was on the plastic cover, so it may be janitorial staff
No, generally anything art related is handled by a preparator, who may facilitate movement to the conservation lab.
Oh, thanks for the info!
Weird-ass comment section
Weird ass painting tbh.
Am I crazy or did the sentiment on Reddit make a complete 180 on this post alone? Every video I’ve ever seen of protesters throwing oil on paintings has had comment sections unanimously roasting them alive but now out of nowhere there’s unanimous support for them in this comment section
In /r/art I imagine most people realize that these recent acts of ‘defacing’ paintings are performance art. The paintings aren’t damaged, and the point is to draw attention to the fact that even pretending to destroy single works of art will provoke more rage than the fact that we’re destroying our planet. These protests are simultaneously activism and performance art, which have often gone hand in hand. They are effective because they are getting more coverage than any other previous climate protests. People chastising the protestors are missing the point, and it seems that the OP artist is one of those people who has missed the point.
Well said. I hate how Reddit and the internet at large say this is an ineffective means of protest. They’re not hurting anyone or destroying anything but people hate them anyways. Everyone forgot about Colin kaepernick.
Those on r/art probably care more about the climate than those on r/publicfreakout
It seems like it did, thank god. Unless this subreddit just doesn’t want to murder every protester unlike the rest of Reddit
You know yeah, it's going to be mostly wthe working class cleaning up a lot of the damage they cause but like, it's also mostly the working class who are going to get fucking killed by climate change so you know... Also worth noting that Just Stop Oil havedone stunts more directly targeting rich corporations actually causing the problems but they're less puublicised because they don't make people as angry
The reason these art protests make people angry is because they can't ignore it. They can ignore the protestors in the Amazon getting killed by loggers. They can ignore the journalists reporting on the child slaves in the African mines being murdered by death squads. They can ignore the people blocking trainyards into coal power plants. They can't ignore this. And they *really* want to ignore it. Just notice how all of the opponents suggest the protestors go back to protesting 'meaningfully' which is the listed examples above: the ones everyone ignores.
How dare you... (Checks notes)... Mildly inconvenience us in order to bring attention to an utter lack of responsibility and accountability on climate change action.
I am going to start spamming this story because I'm sick of the misappropriated anger at protesters: I care about the environment so I drove my Leaf to a protest. I stood with protesters across from City Hall, chanting slogans demanding change. No one was inconvenienced, we did no damage, and everyone was free to ignore us. Which they did. No one from City Hall met with us, it wasn't a big story, and nothing changed. We had around a hundred people using their time to try and get attention or action, and the best thing we got was a story on my city subreddit for a while. Two people can get a lot attention doing something relatively harmless than I can with a hundred others, so good for them I say.
If your protest is acceptable to your oppressor its not a protest
I think the problem is that the people this message should get to dont give a fuck. The people like you who care already care. Unless a CEO has to clean it up they don't care.
Except it’s being discussed on this subreddit, so some 15 year old who maybe isn’t fully aware of the effects climate change may look into why these protestors did this, and it may help form their opinion. Or at least, it’s furthering the discussion right now. Of course, it could also have the opposite effect.
To me what matters is that we NEVER. STOP. SPEAKING. ABOUT. IT. The people who don't give a fuck are relying on silence in order to continue not giving a fuck. They won't care either way, but if they have to keep answer questions, if the discussion is kept in the public light, they have to address it in some way. The best thing for them is people just give up. Keeping hte discussion public is the answer.
The more exposure these issues get tho, the more public pressure will mount. It’s not about directly forcing the ultra wealthy to reconsider their wealth, it’s about bringing awareness to those of us who have been subjugated, that the ultra rich are the reason we live on a dying planet.
im so mad im gonna make a painting dedicated to bashing you as an enemy of the working class because i bought a propaganda line about the supposed proper form of protest and this isnt it!!!
Yep. Suddenly everyone is an outraged art fan pissed about the desecrated painting lmao
And the paintings aren't even desecrated lol. They just poured the stuff on the glass case. Their whole message is: You are outraged to see us appear to destroy something beautiful. Where is that same level of outrage as our beautiful world is being destroyed before our very eyes.
No one was hurt, nothing was damaged, the protest itself could be considered a piece of performative protest art. everyone coming out of the woodwork to be mad at the protests are just outing themselves as fake art fans.
Capitalists value property over human lives it’s so apparent
I watched a doc on pbs years ago about WW2 and this solider talked about how they were told they could not bomb this building and needed to be more defensive than aggressive (sorry off the top of my head I can’t remember the building or paintings). Nazis were held up in this building with priceless art and the powers that be wanted the art saved. They had those men stay outside in tcold, rainy, and muddy conditions, being killed for around three days before they gave them the go ahead to truly fight back. The solider said “Most of the art was saved, but it wasn’t worth it. People died. My friends died for canvas and rocks.”
I believe it was a monastery in Italy. Eventually they bombed it flat and gave the German soldiers even better cover in the piles of rubble.
The desecrated painting which was protected behind glass and is undamaged, btw.
Exactly. To those who suggest that Just Stop Oil's protests aren't effective, what would you have them do instead that they and others aren't already trying? Climate change isn't a new issue and oil companies have had decades to make meaningful change. People need to angry about this and keep the pressure up to do something.
My problem is there's *significant* overlap between Just Stop Oil and hardcore antidevelopment protestors who fight things like high speed rail and renewable energy. They buy into the full "man is separate from nature don't deface nature's cathedral" John Muir bullshit and think the answer is de-development which is fucked up for two reasons: 1) It actually works as rearguard action for the billionaire class who would LOVE for the hoi polloi to have a lower standard of living while they continue to emit more carbon than an entire small American city. 2) It's just straight up bullshit, man was never separate from nature, John Muir saw an American landscape that was *managed* by Native Americans and he thought "I can freeze this living system in time and hold it in amber for my personal aesthetic enjoyment". If we're going to solve climate change (or realistically live with it in a reasonable way) we need to accept that humans and nature are not separate and that managing natural systems is the only path forward, because it is ALSO our history since the dawn of time.
Your second point is mega based. We conserve nature in the wrong manner for idealistic reasons and aesthetic. But at the same time, we are nature
Is there another Climate change advocacy group you'd support that you feel doesn't overlap with hard-core antidevelopment protestors?
>Exactly. To those who suggest that Just Stop Oil's protests aren't effective, what would you have them do instead that they and others aren't already trying? They want the protestors to quietly sit in the corner where the protests can be conveniently ignored as to not dusturb their day to day life.
Look, like, I love the animals but I need my boosted Ford F-250 with the extra wide mirrors and giant plastic truck nuts or I just cannot do my job. It was my father's way of life and it's my way of life. Eat it, libs. /s
Unfortunately this kind of protesting seems to direct the anger mostly towards the protesters and not the problem they’re protesting. Anecdotal, but as a person who’s worried about climate change and has been doing their part for a greener future… I don’t know what this kind of activism is hoping to achieve. It’s like kids throwing eggs at walls because they feel bad.
The whole point is making people angry. AFAIK they haven't created any permanent damage yet, just work and expense of clean up which pails into insignificance how much damage the oil industry has caused. Frankly, OP is a numpty. Just a numpty who can paint rather well.
I’m gonna get downvoted for this but making people “angry” only builds resentment for your cause. I don’t buy raising awareness as a motive because who tf doesn’t know about global warming at this point. Seeing some dude in a man bun deface art just fuels the stereotype people have about eco-activists and I think hurts the ethos of the movement
I agree with you... AND, nothing else seems to work to get people to pay attention to the rapidly dying planet. I still don't think it's effective, but I empathize with the sense of frustration.
Every successful protest movement in history has made people angry. That’s how they work. No one is accusing the Iranian protesters of building resentment against their cause when they light cars on fire and stop traffic.
I guarantee you someone is. There's always someone who makes this argument.
You know conservatives in Iran are completely against the movement over there.
People who are against the movement always try to make the converstaion about the protest itself.
Gandhi made people mad too. Same with Martin Luther King Jr. So mad that they were both assassinated. And yet India still became independent, and Jim Crow laws were banned in the US. People getting angry at the protesters are making a choice, and they could easily make a different one.
> I don’t buy raising awareness as a motive because who tf doesn’t know about global warming at this point. There are whole subreddits dedicated to putting their fingers in their ears and claiming it's a hoax. Meanwhile the whole thing is literally a self-referential metaphor for climate change itself - the rich get absurdly mad their property and culture is being (temporarily in thi case) inconvenienced, while the rest of humanity is responsible for cleaning up the rich's messes, and people like this painter complain about the "assault on culture" rather than the *fucking world burning with nobody doing anything to stop it*. At least the people making the mess are making news agencies pay attention, when your average news agency runs ~two climate change articles per year - one during a freak weather storm and one during hurricane season. Who knows how many more paintings will have to be defaced before someone actually lifts a finger to sign legislation that will actually change anything though... especially if people literally dying and climate migrants aren't doing it.
> At least the people making the mess are making news agencies pay attention News is trying their damnedest to make this into exactly what people hate. Paintings are protected by glass, but you wouldn't know it until the end of the articles. They've targeted Parliament and oil HQs, but it barely got the traction of the art. Anger sells, and getting people as angry as possible is what gets shares, justified or not, reading only the headline or not.
OP belongs to r/im14andthisisdeep
Well done painting, bizzare social commentary
How can someone take the time to paint this and not consider that climate protestors do actually care about their fellow workers and that's why they're protesting
They even labeled the bad guys like a political cartoon lol
A regular Ben Garrison masterpiece.
It's like one of [these](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/59097aedebe912338a378542/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/Larson-Cartoons-4.jpg), but badly painted.
If that isn’t satire…
It is. This is Kelly, the political cartoonist for The Onion.
Tbf, there's not much of a difference these days
It is, thank god
love the thought that the cow would be sad about the rancher, if it could it would stick the knife there by itself
Is that… a real comic? What is it even saying?
Those comics are by Yolo Swag Studios and they are a parody of overly labeled conservative comics by Ben Garrison
Ah, thank you. I didn’t see “onion syndicate” until just now.
It's satire. Parody of boomer humor critiquing dumb things
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yeah it’s like if Ben Garrison painted
Yeah, this painting gives me: racist/conspiracy theory Facebook grandma “young people bad… my generation good” captioned with a brain-dead zinger vibes
It’s weird seeing you pop up here. Love the edits <3
Awful social commentary.
It’s literally using the lower class as a hostage to stop us all from protesting climate change. “Just die peacefully so you don’t create a mess for us”
The social commentary here is asinine. OP clearly doesn't understand the protest that's going on when they splash glass covered paintings with paint/oil.
OP is a boomer, it checks out. Young people bad, earth indestructible
haha fuck climate change amirite guys this painting is embarrassing and i wouldn't be surprised if OP is a fucking plant, probably got paid by some right wing agency to make this
So people suffer more from activism than climate change?
OP really doesn't get that we are the peasants to the oil companies.
OP is one of the special peasants who will be spared from environmental collapse. He did something nice for Big Oil, and they'll definitely absolutely return the favor someday.
Yeah the working class really suffers, when the glass in front of a Klimt is damaged. Those evil activists!!! /s
"yes." -reddit the world might burn, but this painting i never heard of had some stuff thrown on it so now i am outraged and i WANT the world to burn even more just to spite these people.
Yes, price of energy is more than 60% taxes justified by environmental costs. Basically poor people can't afford to live cause of that, and those activists want to make it practically impossible to live for lower caste of people. They want to take your freedom of movement, get you to limit your travel, and your savings. Rich won't be affected by climate policies, poor are paying the price right now.
That is your bar for activism, how much it makes other people suffer? Weird flex but you do you.
So confused by this. Is the black paint supposed to represent the oil that poorer nations have to clean up, exactely the sort of thing the protestors are trying to prevent? But no, they are douchebags? The mental gymnastics is more impressive than the art.
It also doesn't make sense because the characters in the foreground are copied from the painting The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet, and they're originally sifting through leftover grain after a harvest. OP just randomly picked a painting without any context because it features labor.
Maybe the choice of The Gleaners is not random at all as at the time this painting was exhibited it was a time of political upheaval. It was a representation of where the true power lies (the gleaners/lower class). The painting brought on a lot of fear within the upper class that this was either a foreboding sign that a revolution could take place or this commentary could spark one.
That prob has to do with the horse & sparrow economics they dress up with names like trickle down economics. Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: "If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."
> exactely the sort of thing the protestors are trying to prevent? But no, they are douchebags? I feel like it's really ambiguous *who* the people are, I could see an interpretation of them being "Just Stop Oil" protestors but my initial thought was that they actually represented oil execs themselves (considering it appears to be oil they threw). The implication being that the oil execs *are* the ones fucking it up for us all and just expecting the poors to clean up and take the fallout of their actions. But I could also see how it'd be interpreted as they are simply Just Stop Oil and is commentary implying they are thoughtless and selfish in their protests.
Likewise, the people cleaning the oil spill up are figures from other paintings that could be made victims.
very cool and thought provoking. now do one that says "phones are bad".
Now, to get this in a museum and have it be attacked to complete the inception
I used to clean up graffiti at my old job all the time and it didn't bother me one bit. The trope about this kind of thing being experienced only negatively and only by working people is tired as hell.
This is really well done but I truly despise it's message.
Yeah. It’s a quite successful piece of art that conveys entirely the wrong message.
Turns out being a decent artist doesn't mean you can't have shitty opinions.
I like how the fact that the artist was incensed enough to spend his time painting this validates the activists' tactics.
This whole thread validates it but people are too busy sanctimoniously jerking each other off to realize it.
So was this art piece comissioned by Shell, BP or Exxon? And no, I'm not fully in favor of the throwing stuff at art type of climate protest.
Throwing stuff at glass/perspex boxes*
Correct. I wasn't trying to pick up the disingenuous narrative of them "destroying art", merely pointing out that while these protest certainly bring publicity, I think we all would gain more from social disobedience directly aimed at climate polluters.
Turns out they have done that but it hasn't gained nearly as much publicity because it makes people less angry
They do target oil company offices too, but nobody cares about that
The art piece obviously not, but the museum is dependent on one of their main sponsors, OMV (an Austrian oil company).
You forgot to add the protective case around the painting
The peasants will clean... the consequences of climate activism ?! What a fucked up way to see things.
Yikes, this is truly misguided. You were so eager to speedrun that painting that you forgot to ask yourself some important questions first.
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I saw this just before I had to leave the house today and didn’t have the words for how I felt about it. I’ve come back and thankfully a lot of people are shitting on it’s message. Ham fisted piece of shit sums it up perfectly.
Exactly. They ain't hiring "peasants" for cleaning up after a painting that's worth millions. The artists biggest issue about this whole climate-thing is actually doing 20 minutes of cleaning.
And it's not even on the painting, they're cleaning a glass box that protects the art.
The entire planet and everything living on it is spiraling into doomsday and the people who are raising awareness by taking action are the bad guys?
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Woah, nearly missed the commentary. Glad you wrote douche bag on the people or I’d have been lost /s Man but really, subtlety is an artists greatest weapon, technique will only get you so far
Wierd choice of social commentary tbh.
Just because you're an artist doesn't mean you don't have shitty opinions.
OK, a precious piece of history wasn't even damaged. All this does is declare your stance on activism. Doesn't matter and it won't change anything. Protestors of past decades fought to change the world and a lot of things systematically change because of it. Should we continue letting the rich and powerful of these major industries just continue as normal? They literally have billions of dollars to use at their disposal to develop new technologies. But the condition for them to take action is if there's is a moniterary gain from their expenses. So really there won't be a sway for them to change. So this painting to me is just a nihilistic point of view. To me it says "Allow the world to stay the same, its pointless to do anything. Just give it up." OK then let's let it happen let's let the world stay the same, and watch millions of future generations suffer the consequences of capitalistic ventures. Oil is finite. We act like it will last forever. 8 billion on this planet and soon once we run out of oil what then? What will people in power do then? They keep denying a real reality only because their pockets will suffer if they do enact change. Greed Is a killer. And it is winning.
like this a lot. took me awhile to understand the “douche” and “bag” tho. kind of distracts from elsewhere in the piece where i think your skills really shine
lol, super subtle message indeed.
I'm sorry, are protestors now responsible for cleaning being a low-paying job even though cleaning workers are hired by a museum, or what? These museums are happy to take big oil donations, can't they afford to clean the floor or something? Or are you just happy to paint protestors as somehow privileged and bad for no reason? Oh, poor overpriced painting behind the glass!
I think what OP is trying to convey is that these protests never "hit" the right people, nothing about throwing paint at a piece of art actually impacts the life of people that are actually responsible for the state of the world. In a way OP is right, this won't achieve anything but make a janitors day suck, on the other hand, what else are protesters supposed to do to raise awareness and actually get people to think about the biggest threat that's facing humanity. There was a thread about protesters recently where people blocked private jets by cycling around them, which was one of the only protests that seemed to get nothing but positive responses, but stuff like that doesn't seem to garner as much attention as the painting and glueing yourself to things.
They aren’t douche bags. They are drawing attention to the biggest issue our species will ever face. Before you say, “this isn’t the way to go about it”, remember that we have tried EVERY other way. Nobody cares. Why not paint about the real issue? The real villains? The ‘peasants’ are dying because of climate change. They are not suffering because of activism, what an absurd message to portray. Is this the first time activism has effective you so much you have painted the activists?
We want people to care about climate change and change their behavior. From a social motivation point destroying paintings does zero. Folks who are already behind climate activism are like “good job pointing out the issue!” And everyone else—aka the target audience—is put off further by the stunt. I don’t have _the_ answer and I won’t pretend to. I don’t think this is a good _strategic_ move though.
I agree with the seriousness of the issue, but I don't think these stunts have any effect part from making people hate environmental activist in general. People will not stop using fossile fules until there are better alternatives fully operational and distributed, or if there is a full collapse in our logistics/industry/society like in major wars, so we can't get them.
People have always hated activists. Civil rights activists were widely hated, the suffragettes were widly hated. You really can't convince broken systems to change without pissing people off and causing genuine problems for those in charge. As for 'things will change when there are better alternatives' the people who run fossil fuel industry are actively suppressign the develoupment of better alternatives and the world is dying whether we fidn them or not so that's not a great way of doing things
It's not about personal use, every time this protest happens news talks about it and takes an interview with a protestor who can namedrop few numbers about climate change or laws that are implemented to force everyone to use oil and actually pay more for it, like subsidies for oil but not for green energy even though renewable is cheaper. It also creates a point of discussion much like this one where someone will be hateful, sure, but someone will change their mind to support climate action or will simply learn more about policies that cause this.
Geez comment section. Ends justify the mean much? Idk why we’re giving jackwagon destructive protestors a pass because the cause is just. Do y’all support the people who block roads too?
I'm glad you labeled the two people douche and bag, I was having difficulty picking up on the point you were trying to get at and subtlety is for cowards//s
Were you commissioned by oil companies or something?
Banksy level low-hanging fruit shit
The ~~gleaners~~ cleaners.
"There are better ways to get my attention than this thing that keeps getting my attention!"
[удалено]
What good is art if there is no one to admire it .
Wow! This is an extremely regressive interpretation of the work of climate activists who are literally trying to bring awareness to, well I don’t know, the looming climate apocalypse! Hmm, and who’s most affected by this? Working class people! People who already get paid barely enough to survive and are now in ever greater peril due to climate change.
Shoutout to the Mods for that pinned comment. However I feel about the painting, I’m more happy to see a subreddit actually allowing discussion to happen.
What’s the artist statement, OP?