STAFF at Aberdeen Art Gallery staff have been given special training to deal with protesters after a slew of food-based art attacks by climate activists.
A spokesperson for the local authority-run collection – which has received sizeable donations from energy firms in recent years – told The Herald they were being “vigilant.
In May, a man disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair smeared a piece of cake across Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Earlier this month, tomato soup was splattered across Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London, and then, last Sunday, mashed potatoes were tossed at Claude Monet’s Les Meules in a museum in Potsdam in Germany.
Just yesterday, Dutch police arrested three people at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague after a bald man wearing a Just Stop Oil T-shirt tried to superglue his head to Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring as a fellow activist emptied a tin of soup over him.
While none of the paintings have been damaged – the works are all behind protective glass – the protests have rocked the art world.
The Van Gogh soup incident came as part of a month of action in London to coincide with a new round of oil and gas licensing.
In a statement, Phoebe Plummer, one of the protestors said: “Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice?”
“We can’t afford new oil and gas, it’s going to take everything. We will look back and mourn all we have lost unless we act immediately,” she added.
Mel Carrington, a spokeswoman for Just Stop Oil, said protesters had been left with little choice: “We tried sitting in the roads, we tried blocking oil terminals, and we got virtually zero press coverage, yet the thing that gets the most press is chucking some tomato soup on a piece of glass covering a masterpiece.”
With Aberdeen having been Europe’s oil capital for decades, the gallery has long benefited from the largesse of energy firms.
BP recently donated £1 million towards a new exhibition space in the gallery’s recent redevelopment.
The energy firm said it was about making “a material contribution to the fabric of the city.”
The gallery is home to one of the finest collections in the UK, with works by Scottish artists including Henry Raeburn, Joan Eardley, Samuel Peploe as well as pieces by Francis Bacon, Tracey Emin and Claude Monet.
When asked if they were worried about climate protesters, an Aberdeen City Council spokesperson told The Herald: “All the front-of-house team have been given training and guidance on how best to respond in such a situation, but our primary aim is to make our venues welcoming and accessible to all.
“Whilst we hope visitors and protesters alike treat the public’s collection with respect, we are vigilant.”
Earlier this year, protesters glued themselves to a painting at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. The 19th-century landscape painting by Horatio McCulloch called My Heart’s In The Highlands was unharmed although the stunt resulted in the early closure of the museum.
Asked about more protesters, a spokesperson for Glasgow Life said: “Glasgow Life Museums are visited by millions of people every year, who behave respectfully while enjoying Glasgow’s incredible collection.
“Museums are places that foster understanding and promote discussion and our staff do everything they can to ensure a positive experience for all and to protect the exhibits in their care.
“To do so, appropriate security measures are in place and continuously monitored. If any security threat was identified this would be a matter for Police Scotland.”
The National Galleries of Scotland said they would not provide detail about security measures.
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