Climate activists in Italy have once again hit the headlines with their latest protest, this time chaining themselves to a railing in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Northern Italy. On August 21, protestors from the Ultima Generazione (‘Last Generation’) group entered the 14th-century chapel, which is adorned with frescoes by Giotto, to stand publicly against the use of fossil fuels. The group was able to stay in the chapel for 30 minutes, after which the police took them away in handcuffs. After the attack on the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the group commented: “We ask museum workers to strike with us and to position themselves clearly against the use of fossil energies, and also [stand up] in defense of our cultural heritage”, as The Art Newspaper reported.
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The protest follows a number of similar interventions across Italy. Last week, members of the group glued themselves to a plinth of the Laocoön and his Sons sculpture in Rome, one of the most famous ancient sculptures housed in the Vatican Museums, created around 40BC. On August 5, other young activists glued themselves to a sculpture by the Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni in Milan. “The progress that the Futurists hoped for is the same that is now leading us towards mass extinction,” said the group in a press statement. The episode came just days after Ultima Generazione targeted Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera (around 1480), the Renaissance panel painting by Botticelli depicting Venus and Cupid and other figures from classical mythology, housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. In each intervention, the group assured that the art was not damaged. In Botticelli’s case, the demonstrators glued themselves to the glass protecting the painting, after consulting restorers.
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The aim of Ultima Generazione is to stage non-violent civil disobedience actions to draw attention to climate change. They state their demands as plain and simple, urging the Italian government to “immediately stop the reopening of disused coal plants and cancel the project of new drilling for the research and extraction of natural gas” and “to increase solar and wind energy by at least 20GW this year, to create thousands of new jobs in renewable energy by helping fossil industry workers find employment in more sustainable jobs.”
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Ultima Generazione has taken inspiration from a surge of similar actions across the UK, which began on June 29 when two protestors glued themselves to a 19th-century painting by Horatio McCulloch at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow. The activist belonged to the UK-based climate movement Just Stop Oil, who similarly to Ultima Generazione, urges the British government to halt new fossil fuel licensing and production. Following the incident at Glasgow, a William Turner painting at the Manchester Art Gallery, as well as a Vincent van Gogh in London’s Courtauld Gallery and the 19th-century painting The Hay Wain (1821) by John Constable in London’s National Gallery were targeted. In May, a man in the Louvre smeared the glass cover protecting Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa with cake, and later claimed he did so in the name of climate change activism.
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The protests staged against these works of art may seem bizarre to outsiders, but the groups have a clear logic in mind: “In the same way that we defend our artistic heritage,” Ultima Generazione said in an online statement, “we should be dedicated to the care and protection of the planet that we share with the rest of the world. Art has always had an important value in transmitting beauty, uniting cultures, and in preserving the best expressions of humanity. Now it should still be like that.” Both Ultima Generazione and Just Stop Oil are said to be funded by the Climate Emergency Fund, a Los Angeles-based organization that supports environmental activism “through protest, disruption, and non-violent direct action”, as told by a spokesperson for CEF. The advocates have made it clear that they will not stop until the government takes action.
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