Two activists taped themselves to the frames of two paintings by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya at the Prado Museum in Madrid during the recent protest against climate change.
The couple scrawled the message +1.5 degrees Celsius between the paintings they were targeting – nude Maya and clothed Maya – a reference to the damaging differences to the planet seen at two degrees as opposed to 1.5 .
Police have reportedly arrived and cleared the room, but no updates have been given on the protesters.
They identified themselves as members of Futuro Vegetal, which literally means vegetable future and is a movement associated with Extinction Rebellion Spain.
In a separate action, protesters in the Netherlands blocked private airports from leaving Amsterdam ahead of the Cop27 summit in Egypt today.
Futuro Vegetal said in a tweet showing the women glued to the paintings: “We glued to Goya’s Mijas in the Prado Museum.
“Last week the United Nations recognized the impossibility of limiting global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris Agreement.”
Two activists glued themselves to the frames of two paintings by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya
The two young women are raising awareness of the importance of staying within the 1.5 degree global warming limit agreed at the Paris summit
One of the images targeted was Clothed Maja by Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes
The second targeted image was the Naked Maja by Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes
Meanwhile in the Netherlands, a large group of protesters gathered at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to protest the aviation industry’s environmental impact
The group added that failing to meet the limits would lead to more extreme weather conditions, such as drought, and put agriculture and the food industry at risk.
It said: “We need change now. We need a plant-based future [literal translation: Vegetable future]’.
Video footage of the scene appears to show museum staff trying to stop bystanders from filming the protest.
A woman wearing a lanyard was heard saying “No photos please” and appeared to say that police had been called.
Pictures show a young woman first pasting herself on one of the two paintings while the second wrote her 1.5 degree message on the wall between them. Then she got the glue from the first activist and glued herself to the second frame.
No damage appears to have occurred to any of the paintings.
Staffers asked people not to film or photograph the protesters after they taped themselves
Hundreds of climate protesters blocked private jets from leaving Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport during a demonstration on the eve of the COP27 UN climate meeting in Egypt on Saturday.
Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion protesters sat around private jets to prevent them from taking off, and others rode bicycles around the planes.
Greenpeace Netherlands’ Dewi Zloch said activists wanted “fewer flights, more trains and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets”.
Military police said they arrested a number of protesters for being on the airport premises without permits.
Extinction Rebellion protesters perform in front of the control tower at Schiphol Airport on Saturday
Demonstrators rallied both inside and outside of Schiphol Airport to halt the departure of flights
Environmental protesters hold signs at Dutch airport on the eve of Cop27
Responding to an open letter from Greenpeace, Schiphol’s new CEO, Ruud Sondag, said the airport “aims for zero-emission airports by 2030 and carbon-neutral aviation by 2050. And we have a duty to be at the forefront of that,” but acknowledged that things needed to be done more quickly.
More than 120 leaders will attend this year’s UN climate talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh starting Sunday.
Topics to be discussed at the November 6-18 talks include further reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing financial aid to poor countries struggling with the effects of climate change.
The latest museum protest follows an incident last month in which activists from Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s sunflowers at the National Gallery in London.
Days later, climate activists threw mashed potatoes at a painting by Claude Monet in Germany.
Most recently on Friday, a group of activists threw pea soup at a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece in Rome, in a protest they warned will continue until more attention is paid to climate change.
‘The Sower’, an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominant sun, was displayed undamaged behind glass.
Security immediately intervened and removed the protesters who were kneeling in front of “The Sower” in the Palazzo Bonaparte. Demonstrators from the same group, the Last Generation, previously blocked a highway near Rome.
Last Generation climate activists called their protest “a desperate and science-based cry that cannot be construed as mere vandalism.”
“Nonviolent direct action will continue until citizens receive responses from their government to demands to halt gas and coal and invest in at least 20GW of renewable energy,” they said in a statement.
A video captured from a museum gallery packed with visitors shows two young women throwing a liquid substance at the painting.
She and a third woman are then seen taping their hands to the wall while shouting erupts in the room.
Last month, two protesters glued themselves to the ground after throwing soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London
One of the protesters said after the stunt, “What is worth more, art or life?” before they stuck themselves to the wall
The £76million artwork was left “unharmed” during the October 14 climate demonstration.
They are after masterpieces like Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in the Louvre in Paris or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague.
In October, the group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery.
All of these paintings were covered with glass and undamaged.
In another recent action by the UK eco-group, Just Stop Oil spent every day in October blocking various roads around the capital as they called for an end to all new sources of fossil fuels.
On the final day of action, activists also spray-painted bright orange paint on MI5 headquarters, the offices of the Bank of England and News Corp.
The MI5 building was one of four chosen by the group who they believe represent the pillars that support and maintain the power of the fossil fuel economy – government, security, finance and the media.
Activists later sat in the middle of the street on Victoria Street in front of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Police urged the public to stop interfering in protests, such as trying to remove protesters from the streets, as doing so could hamper efforts to prosecute criminals.
But angry citizens pressed on despite the warnings.
A man attempted to snatch a fire extinguisher from a protester who was used to spray paint across the MI5 building – resulting in both of them being covered in paint.
Video captured the moment the angry passerby jostled for control of the device with the climate activist spray-painting them as they doused the front of MI5’s Marsham Street building in Westminster
Police intervened after Tez Burns, 34, sprayed orange paint on the outside of the MI5 building on Marsham Street earlier this morning
The Bank of England on Threadneedle Street in the City of London was also targeted on the group’s final day of chaos
News Corp’s London Bridge headquarters – which own publications such as The Sun, The Times and TalkTV – have also been targeted by the group. It is the second time the building has been vandalized by environmental activists this year
Don’t intervene “directly” in the “Just Stop Oil” eco-mob, motorists demanded from the police chief
The Met police have urged passers-by not to take the law into their own hands and to “intervene directly” to move protesters.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Matt Twist said on Friday he “understands” the public’s frustration at being caught up in the Just Stop Oil protests, but said drivers should “call us, and we’ll get in touch with climate activists.” deal with”.
He warned motorists taking matters into their own hands could hamper law enforcement, adding that police must “work within the clear legal framework and secure evidence of the road obstruction offence”.
He also said the force has arrested 651 people since Oct. 1 while responding to the Just Stop Oil protests, equivalent to more than 7,900 shifts of officers.