Climate protesters throw mashed potatoes at Monet’s Les Meules painting

Claude Monet’s famous artwork has become the latest target of climate protests. Two environmental protesters threw mashed potatoes over one of his paintings in Germany’s Museum Barberini.

In a video, the two activists can be seen throwing the mashed potatoes all over Monet’s ‘Les Meules’ and then sitting under the painting to explain their act. The protesters – belonging to a German environmental group ‘Letzte Generation’ – justified their actions in the video.

“People are starving, people are freezing, people are dying. We are in a climate catastrophe and all you are afraid of is tomato soup or mashed potatoes on a painting. You know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid because science tells us that we won’t be able to feed our families in 2050,” the protestors can be heard saying (rough translation).

They added, “Does it take mashed potatoes on a painting to make you listen? This painting is not going to be worth anything if we have to fight over food. When will you finally start to listen? When will you finally start to listen and stop business as usual?”

The German environmental group also shared the video on their Twitter handle. “This Monet the stage and the public the audience. If it takes pelting a painting with mashed potato or tomato soup to remind society that the fossil course is killing us all, then we give you mashed potato on a painting,” it wrote.

Monet’s ‘Les Meules’ was sold in 2019 at an auction in New York for about USD 110.07 million, according to a New York Times report. Earlier this month, a climate group called ‘Just Stop Oil’ threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London as an act of protest.