Soup Season
Hi, all.
Both Minneapolis and Bozeman have had their first snowfalls and I’ve dug out my mounds of sweaters from the closet since I wrote the last Movement Monday a couple of weeks ago. It’s a little warmer in Minneapolis today, but there’s been a crisp in the air and a bite to the wind, and all the old houses are once again filled with the groans of radiators pumping heat. In other words, it is once again soup season.
You might not think this observation has a lot to do with the climate movement, but it’s actually quite fitting for our topic today: The infamous Van Gogh Soup Throw from October 14th, 2022.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the event, the briefest of rundowns is as follows: two activists from a group called Just Stop Oil intentionally threw a can of soup (tomato?) onto van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in the National Gallery in the UK and then glued their hands to the wall below the painting while wearing shirts and holding a can that said “Just Stop Oil.”
Since then, the Soup Throw has been followed up by a couple of activists from the group Last Generation who threw some ~sloppy~ mashed potatoes onto Monet’s Grainstacks painting and then glued their hands underneath the painting while protesting the looming climate catastrophe.
For those of you who were familiar with the Soup Throw before this newsletter, you’re probably thinking, oh god, not the soup again, but, alas, yes, this is about the soup. I am hoping, however, to thread the needle between a couple of hot takes that have been sending the climate movement into an online tizzy and offer something with a little more depth and robust flavor.
Let’s start with an important first note, which is that neither painting was damaged by the flung food and so critiques about the activists forever ruining masterpieces of art are null and void.
There is a faction of the climate movement who have decried the Soup Throw tactic as utterly shameful (disrespecting great art) and alienating to the rest of the world (who may like that art). They’re of the opinion that seemingly ruining really beloved works of art in the name of the climate movement is some seriously bad PR when we really can’t afford to not have public support and when the National Gallery isn’t directly supporting fossil fuel companies. Which I get, to a certain extent.
Others, however, have cheered on the Soup Throwers for so successfully grabbing attention around the world and focusing it on the climate crisis without actually harming anyone or anything. Which I also get.
Nicolas Haeringer (who works at 350) made a point I appreciated about the soup in this blog post:
This action is designed to be destabilizing. It is meant to hit us and to challenge us: what are we ready to do, what are we eager to give up, or even to sacrifice to try to save what can still be saved? The fact that we’re shocked is part of the action — it isn’t a consequence of a badly thought out and too quickly organized action, it is at the heart of the action. Destabilization is obviously one of the objectives of the two activists of Just Stop Oil. From this point of view, the action fits perfectly in a cultural institution: it literally is a performance — actually, if say a dadaist had performed it in the 20th century, this would be considered by many as a milestone in the history of arts. This performance could also be understood as a tribute to Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans.
Haeringer also makes the point out that climate change directly threatens art, reminding his readers that “many of Le Louvre’s room[s] are under the level of the Seine, and as such in a flood zone. And the question isn’t ‘if’ a huge flood will happen, but ‘when.’”
Given all that, I do tend to lean towards the view that while throwing soup/other food at a famous painting may not be the most effective form of protest, it certainly did get people talking and thinking about climate change and how much more disruptive it could be to our lives if we don’t address it, and that is a good thing.
However, I do have one more bone to pick: The New York Times reported that Last Generation (the group with the activists who threw the mashed potatoes at the Monet) wrote a blog post asking, “What is worth more, art or life?,” and I have some issues with that framing of art vs. life. Ultimately, it is their protest and their message, but I’m very wary of actions that brand the climate movement as an anti-joy.
Making and appreciating art is not anti-climate, nor is finding joy where you can. It is true we can and should find ways to make the art world more sustainable and less elite, but I really believe climate and art is not a “pick one” situation. In her non-fiction book Orwell’s Roses, Rebecca Solnit describes an essay George Orwell wrote called “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad,” in which he defends a love of nature to his fellow political discontents, who saw the appreciation of nature as frivolous. And she connects this defense of enjoyment to the women’s rights movement’s slogan, “Bread for all, and roses too,” which expresses the belief that everyone should have their basic needs met (bread) and they should have access to things beyond the basics (art, education, literature).
All that to say, the climate movement is about fighting for our collective survival but it need not be at the expense of things worth living for (including, but not limited to van Goghs and delicious soups).