Oil attack on famous Gustav Klimt painting

On Tuesday they attacked a picture by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt in Vienna’s Leopold Museum with a black liquid.

The black liquid covers the world-famous painting like heavy oil…

Klimt’s “Death and Life” was glazed, said museum spokesman Klaus Pokorny. A spokeswoman for the museum: “At first glance, the work is doing well.” Restorers are currently checking whether it has been damaged.

The “Last Generation” group, which is also active in Germany, then posted a video on Twitter in which a member hurled the black liquid against the famous work of art.

The activists referred to the partially state-owned Austrian oil and gas company OMV. “People still exploring and drilling for new oil and gas have blood on their hands – sponsorships can’t wash that away,” they wrote on Twitter. The company supported an open day at the Leopold Museum this Tuesday.

Climate activists have already undertaken similar actions in various museums this year. At the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona, ​​they poured colored liquid over a display case containing a replica of a mummy and onto paintings on the surrounding walls. In Madrid they clung to a work by Baroque master Francisco de Goya, attacked paintings by Vincent van Gogh in London and Claude Monet in Potsdam. Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” in The Hague has also been the target of their attacks.

“This is illegal, these are criminals”

After the ongoing actions of the climate group “Last Generation” and further announced blockades by the activists, the Baden-Württemberg Minister of the Interior Thomas Strobl has had enough. “It’s illegal, they’re criminals,” criticized the CDU politician on Tuesday in Stuttgart. He considers the motivation of the mostly young people “irrelevant”. For Strobl, it was “absolutely unacceptable” to accept that rescue services would be held up and human lives endangered. “Possibly one or the other is not about climate protection at all, but about committing crimes,” said Strobl.