In recent years, activists have targeted art to raise awareness about food access and climate change issues. It’s an unconventional — and some have argued, misguided — method to get a point across, but it happens nonetheless.
On Sunday, two female activists hurled soup at the famous Mona Lisa painting at the Louvre Museum to protest food insecurity and a broken agricultural system. The demonstrators are part of an environmental group, Riposte Alimentaire, translated as “Food Response.”
A video posted by CNN shows the orange soup being hurled from bottles before one of the protestors climbs underneath the barrier to tell onlookers at the Paris museum, “What is more important: Art, or the right to a healthy and sustainable diet?”
“Our farming system is sick,” they said. “Our farmers are dying at work.”
Riposte Alimentaire claimed responsibility for the incident on X (formerly Twitter), and the protestors were wearing shirts with the group’s name on them. The activist organization said that the non-violent actions were completed by 24-year-old Sasha and 63-year-old Marie-Juliette, who demanded the establishment of a Sustainable Food Social Security system.
In subsequent posts, the French group shares about its actions to social, economic, and environmental problems with the food system, blaming food production for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charts that 24 percent of emissions is from “Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use” globally, but the percentage of ag’s contribution to emissions in the U.S. is far, far less.)
The Louvre’s security members blocked the women with black screens before removing them. Afterward, according to The Associated Press, police made two arrests. The artwork itself was no damaged, and no one was injured.
It’s not the first time activists have targeted art to raise awareness about climate change. According to Reuters, the glass in front of the Mona Lisa was covered in cream in a May 2022 protest.
In Oct. 2022, Just Stop Oil’s campaign group targeted Vincent van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers by throwing soup in London’s National Gallery. Just a month later, climate activists glued their hands to La Maja Vestida and La Maja Desnuda, paintings by Francisco de Goya, in Madrid’s Prado museum.
The Mona Lisa incident comes as French farmers protest against the government
Following the two arrests, France’s interior ministry ordered a deployment of security forces around Paris as angry farmers threatened to head toward the capital.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin will send 15,000 police officers to the Paris region to prevent blockades of the Rungis International Market, which supplies fresh food to the capital and surrounding areas. Darmanina also hopes to avoid blockades of the Paris airports and convoys from entering the capital. Helicopters will monitor convoys of tractors.
The farmers are putting pressure on the government, demanding better remuneration for produce, decreased red tape, taxes, and protection against cheap imports.