Are Protesters Who Do Outrageous Things Truly Nutty?

Research shows that protestors who perform attention-grabbing stunts create public awareness for their cause.

Climate protesters hold a demonstration as they throw cans of tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh's ... More "Sunflowers" at the National Gallery in London, United Kingdom on October 14, 2022. The gallery said that the work was unharmed aside from some minor damage to the frame. (Photo by Just Stop Oil / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

As pro-Palestine and anti-ICE protests command our attention, climate protests have receded into the background. Yet not so long ago, the world was captivated by two climate activists who smeared red and black paint on the pedestal and enclosure of Degas’ “Little Dancer” sculpture at Washington’s National Gallery of Art, and by activists who appeared to splatter Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” with tomato soup at the British Museum. What in the world were these protesters thinking?

To answer this question, I talked to two activists who adorn iconic statues with climate messages as a form of protest–including on the Cornell University campus (where I teach). This led me to an exploration of the history of art protests, and a more nuanced view of how launching symbolic attacks on art could help change the world.

Graduation Day Protest at Cornell University

Early on May 24, before proud parents and happy graduates assembled for their graduation march across the Cornell University campus, a small protest was taking shape. Activists attempted to blindfold the statue of Cornell’s co-founder and first president, Andrew Dickson White. Their plan was to drape the blindfolded statue with banners carrying the messages “Stop fossil fuel complicity” and “Don’t look away from our futures.” The activists–part of the group Cornell on Fire–also planned to hold banners along the route of the graduation procession demanding Cornell offer a “fossil-free degree.”

But before they could finish assembling their blindfolds and banners, the protesters were stopped by the campus police and told to leave the campus. In fact, they were declared personae non gratae and barred from all Cornell properties for three years. The police encounter and three-year suspension from Cornell properties garnered Cornell on Fire media attention, more so than its carefully choreographed video of the event would have captured in the absence of the stern police response.

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But was the protest successful in reaching Cornell on Fire’s climate goals? Let’s start by looking back at the history of art protest.

Art Protest: From Suffragettes to Anti-War to Climate

Museum and art protests are not new. In 1914, British suffragette Mary Richardson walked into the British National Gallery and slashed Diego Velázquez’s “The Rokeby Venus” with a meat cleaver. Her goal was to draw attention to women’s right to vote after half a century of struggle. And in a 1974 action to protest the Vietnam War, Iranian American Tony Shafrazi spray-painted “KILL LIES ALL” in red on Picasso’s “Guernica” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Activists believe that these “radical fringe” protests are critical to getting the media, the public, and elected officials to pay attention to their cause, and to creating a space for more conventional advocacy to be taken seriously. But I was dubious: don’t they also risk alienating the public?

Art “Vandalism”

Unlike Mary Richardson’s slashing “The Rokeby Venus,” recent climate art vandalism has not actually damaged the works of art, which are protected by glass or other means. Regardless, the shock value of these protests is real. Perhaps the most famous incident of climate art vandalism was the Just Stop Oil activists who splattered tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in the National Gallery in London. As stunned visitors looked on, the activists demanded: “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” In another incident at the National Museum of Norway, protesters tried to glue themselves to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” shouting: “I scream for people dying” and “I scream when lawmakers ignore science.”

Museum Performances

“Great art should not be complicit in climate chaos.” (Liberate Tate)

In 2013, fifty veiled figures dressed in black walked into the Tate Museum’s 1840 room, the mid-1800’s being a time when the industrial revolution began to significantly raise climate emissions. They continued their solemn march through the chronologically arranged galleries to the present day contemporary art collection, noting that CO2 levels had reached 400 parts per million–exceeding what scientists say is needed to keep the earth safe for human life. In another of 14 climate “performances,” Liberate Tate protesters occupied the museum’s Turbine Hall throughout the night, scrawling warnings about climate devastation on the floor. These performances were intended to bring to light the role of fossil fuel giant BP in sponsoring the museum’s exhibits, and thus the Tate’s complicity in the climate change crisis. Although denying that their decision had anything to do with the protests, BP ended its 26-year sponsorship of the Tate shortly after these actions.

Scientist blindfold statue and drape statue with anti-fossil fuel message as part of Don't Look Away ... More protest at UC Berkeley. Scientist Rebellion

Don’t Look Away Statues

According to bethany ojalehto mays, co-founder of Cornell on Fire, the graduation day statue blindfolding protest was intended to spark curiosity using a fun, likable activity–one less likely to draw ire than throwing soup toward a famous painting. The protesters hoped that curious bystanders would take their flyers with a QR code linked to the organization’s demands: sign a resolution demanding Cornell declare a climate emergency and take appropriate urgent actions; urge Cornell to dissociate from fossil-fuel funding for their retirement funds; and join a sister group called Fossil Free Cornell. Later that morning, other Cornell on Fire activists held up a banner for students and faculty marching in the graduation procession to see. The banner read: “We demand a fossil free degree.” Like the earlier statue protest, the banner protestors were quickly stopped by the campus police.

Although I didn’t realize it at first, the Cornell protests were part of a larger statue blindfolding campaign organized by Scientist Rebellion. Scientist Rebellion is a group of scientists who realize that the decades they spent writing papers, advising governments, and briefing the press have failed to generate the policies needed to thwart the climate crisis. After looking at the civil rights and other successful protests, they became convinced that non-violent civil resistance–including getting arrested for disruptive actions–was needed to bring about urgently needed change. They recognized that protests around iconic statues can generate visibility for the climate cause. So, they launched their “Statue Blindfolding: Don’t Look Away” campaign to signal to public officials: “Don’t look away (from the climate crisis) if you hope one day your city will build a statue of you"--or more seriously, to create awareness of the urgency of the climate crisis. According to Scientist Rebellion organizer Greg Spooner, one such protest in a San Francisco park near a conference center was “100 % ignored” by police as conference attendees talked with the protesters and took selfies with the blindfolded statue draped in climate protest banners.

Art Protests: Effective or Not?

“This is about the extinction of life on earth and they want to make it about painting on a display case…" (Protester arrested for throwing paint toward Degas’ “Little Dancer” statue at the US National Gallery of Art.)

Lest we think recent art protests are without precedent, we can look back to the struggle for women’s suffrage, which started in the mid nineteenth century. By 1913, the suffragettes were committing an average of 20 bombings and arson attacks per month. In comparison, contemporary climate activism seems rather mild. But have these disruptive protests been effective in garnering women’s right to vote or changing climate policy?

We know that many people have a negative view of disruptive protests. German Chancellor Scholz reacted to protestors gluing themselves to museum art and to asphalt in the middle of busy highways: “it’s completely nutty to somehow stick yourself to a painting or on the street.” In an Annenberg Policy Center survey conducted after protestors threw tomato soup towards Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” 46% of respondents said that disruptive nonviolent protests decreased their support for efforts to address climate change, whereas only 13% said it increased their support. Pointing out the misfit between art vandalism and the climate movement’s goals, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann warned: “From a communications standpoint, the protest seemed like an even bigger mess than the soup-splattered painting.”

Yet a study of climate change and animal rights movements found that unpopular tactics of a “radical flank” increase public support for moderate factions within the same movement. Other studies have shown that while people may not like the radical flank protesters, this dislike does not influence their support for the protestors’ cause. Further, radical protests might not influence what people think but can influence what they think about. After disruptive climate protests in the UK, the environment emerged among the top three public concerns for the first time. The authors conclude: “People may “shoot the messenger,” but they do – at least, sometimes – hear the message.”

When I asked Cornell on Fire founder bethany ojalehto mays what they were accomplishing by blindfolding the President White statue, she had a ready answer. An earlier such protest had attracted many curious students, and the activists quickly ran out of flyers with the QR code connecting to actions the students could take. She hoped that the media attention generated by the police response to the graduation day protest would help Cornell on Fire amplify its message and potentially attract more adherents to its climate demands, and maybe to some of its other activities like creating science-backed reports documenting the university’s emissions. In essence, Cornell on Fire combines “radical flank” actions designed to garner attention with more moderate advocacy. Think of Greenpeace commanding media attention with its kayak flotillas surrounding huge oil tankers combined with the Environmental Defense Fund producing science-based reports for decision makers.

Who Is the Radical?

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres takes issue with Chancellor Scholz’s characterization of art protestors as “nutty.” Speaking to climate scientists in 2022, Guterres said: “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness." Guterres believes “We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.” The soup throwers and activists blindfolding statues hope to wake us from our climate stupor.

I am a Cornell professor and Cornell On Fire faculty fellow.

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