I don’t give a fuck about bothering people. I give a fuck about the potential damage to pieces of human heritage. Take a sledgehammer, hit the streets, hell, hit the oil execs, I don’t give a fuck. But don’t damage artwork or artifacts that are generations old and widely recognized as important pieces of human culture.
Like, fuck, when anti-colonial activists knifed that painting of some British twat a few months back, I was totally fine with it. Because it was:
A relevant British twat to colonization
A painting that wasn’t even that fucking old
A painting that was not widely recognized as a cultural treasure
You’ll notice how the only thing they can cite is “worry” by “staff” with no qualification for whether the worry was realistic. People worry about a lot of things and are willing to claim they worry about much more when it suits them. “I feared for my life” doesn’t actually mean your life was in danger.
They’re not mentioning “worries” of the people who actual design the protection, because those people either don’t worry or should find a different job. A liquid leaking through to damage the painting is literally the purpose of the protection. Especially after such high profile events starting years ago, including literally this same painting.
You’ll notice how the only thing they can cite is “worry” by “staff” with no qualification for whether the worry was realistic.
I’m sure the staff whose job it is to caretake these priceless objects have no clue what they’re talking about, sure.
They’re not mentioning “worries” of the people who actual design the protection, because those people either don’t worry or should find a different job. A liquid leaking through to damage the painting is literally the purpose of the protection. Especially after such high profile events starting years ago.
So:
I find that argument that the onus is not on individuals to not damage paintings, the onus is on the gallery’s security systems to prevent them from doing so, to be uncompelling
You cannot realistically protect a painting from its frame. If you really want to totally protect it, you could plexiglass the whole exhibit, frame and all, but that’s just another step in the escalation of security measures vs. vandals, and does not address the underlying problem.
That such high profile events started and have continued despite repeated incidents of damage to artifacts (though thankfully nothing totally destroyed), as well as some near-misses like this one suggest that there is an issue causing these high profile events to continue. As these events have not led to any sort of climate policy change or mass change in climate change opinion, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than the reason for the continuation of these high profile events is internal reinforcement from these social circles and activist groups. Or, if you will, asspats.
If they had the guy whose job it was to figure out how to protect paintings say he didn’t do a very good job and the painting wasn’t protected, they would have said that. Instead they just used the generic “staff”, a descriptor which encompasses anyone from the ticket takers to the people who solicit donations from the rich and powerful who both have no special expertise in the protection systems and a very good reason to both want to discourage further direct action in their establishment and tell the rich people they’re on their side.
You cannot realistically protect a painting from its frame.
LOL, what? I have a print in my room right now with glass between the art and its frame. And that’s not even a publicly accessible priceless piece of art that’s undergone past attacks. The external frame has no reason to actually touch the artwork.
Pug my guy, all bets are off, every polluting industry is grinding billions to keep this cart on its current track. I’m sure if they could strike at oil execs they would, but have you tried to locate these people? Which mansion are they in at this time of year? Its not realistic. We’re burning alive right now. They need to garner mass attention now, and we’re all sitting here arguing over the efficacy of paint on paper instead of talking about the literal destruction of all life supporting habitats, not even just human. Its that serious.
Pug my guy, all bets are off, every polluting industry is grinding billions to keep this cart on its current track.
But it’s the vandalism of art that’s going to turn the tides against that? A few middle class kids getting a handful of months in prison for tossing soup around at an art gallery?
Fuck, if you’re gonna be serious about taking this as a suffragist level crisis, you need suffragist level tactics. You need to riot. You need to attack the places the rich feel safe. Not toss soup on historical artifacts to ‘raise awareness’.
I’m sure if they could strike at oil execs they would
I’m extremely doubtful of that. That wouldn’t feel ‘monumental’ enough. They want to be part of a world-changing event, the bit that people look back and say “This is it, this is when it started!” without understanding the long and complex fight that led to that point. They want to be part of a notable event, not a mass campaign. But my distrust of their motives is beside the point; even if their motives were unimpugnable, this would remain a terrible way to go about things.
but have you tried to locate these people? Which mansion are they in at this time of year?
Man, the richest people in the world can be tracked with almost hilarious ease. Stunning amounts of information is publicly available. Flight logs, ship entry/exit to ports, publicly announced corpo meetings.
They need to garner mass attention now,
That’s just the thing - it’s not mass attention that the subject needs. The subject HAS mass attention. The issue is that people don’t perceive the seriousness of issue, or believe more is being done about it than actually is, or fall for political rhetoric that promises environmental destruction under the guise of conservation. We HAVE mass attention. People KNOW. But they aren’t on our side, or at least, rather, not on our side in the way that we need.
This is the grueling, ugly, thankless part that no one wants to do, the education, the politiking, the push to reorganize incentives to prioritize climate goals, the miserable prying of fringe supporters to a pro-climate position. And that doesn’t suit people who prefer there to be a single isolated issue they can focus all their attention on and get accolades for - there’s no point where the world collapses onto its knees, tears in its eyes, and cries out “I see now, I see, thank you so much!”
The most ideal realistic scenario is the scenario of women’s rights - in a hundred years, multifaceted efforts may, if we fight for it, render the question of opposing climate change obsolete - but no one is going to admit in a hundred years, save the lunatic fringe, of being pro-oil or the environmental equivalent of the time, just as no one except the lunatic fringe questions women’s suffrage now (I think if we presume that our efforts fighting the issue in the here and now are successful, at the very least the issue then cannot still be oil in 100 years, or we’ve utterly lost in that period of time, but I use oil just as a signifier of that ‘kind’ of position).
The fight will never end. And people get discouraged by that, so they try to hyperfocus to the detriment of actual progress on the matter.
People are just doing whatever they can. I mean what can you do? Nobody is gonna kick in the doors of the execs until the food runs out and the TVs dont turn on, and if you did that it wouldnt stop the machine from turning. Same as if the lizard that manages my company for his mother ship dies, I’m still showing up to work and fixing computers.
I’m not condemning them for doing something small, only trying to emphasize that my issue here is not damaging things in general, but damaging, specifically, historical pieces. It’s just seems like throwing soup at paintings is the wrong approach on every level.
I don’t give a fuck about bothering people. I give a fuck about the potential damage to pieces of human heritage. Take a sledgehammer, hit the streets, hell, hit the oil execs, I don’t give a fuck. But don’t damage artwork or artifacts that are generations old and widely recognized as important pieces of human culture.
Like, fuck, when anti-colonial activists knifed that painting of some British twat a few months back, I was totally fine with it. Because it was:
I wonder if they got off, come to think of it.
Ok, then why are you complaining. There was zero potential damage from this act.
Not even close to true.
Priceless human heritage, purchased in 1999.
You’ll notice how the only thing they can cite is “worry” by “staff” with no qualification for whether the worry was realistic. People worry about a lot of things and are willing to claim they worry about much more when it suits them. “I feared for my life” doesn’t actually mean your life was in danger.
They’re not mentioning “worries” of the people who actual design the protection, because those people either don’t worry or should find a different job. A liquid leaking through to damage the painting is literally the purpose of the protection. Especially after such high profile events starting years ago, including literally this same painting.
I’m sure the staff whose job it is to caretake these priceless objects have no clue what they’re talking about, sure.
So:
I find that argument that the onus is not on individuals to not damage paintings, the onus is on the gallery’s security systems to prevent them from doing so, to be uncompelling
You cannot realistically protect a painting from its frame. If you really want to totally protect it, you could plexiglass the whole exhibit, frame and all, but that’s just another step in the escalation of security measures vs. vandals, and does not address the underlying problem.
That such high profile events started and have continued despite repeated incidents of damage to artifacts (though thankfully nothing totally destroyed), as well as some near-misses like this one suggest that there is an issue causing these high profile events to continue. As these events have not led to any sort of climate policy change or mass change in climate change opinion, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than the reason for the continuation of these high profile events is internal reinforcement from these social circles and activist groups. Or, if you will, asspats.
If they had the guy whose job it was to figure out how to protect paintings say he didn’t do a very good job and the painting wasn’t protected, they would have said that. Instead they just used the generic “staff”, a descriptor which encompasses anyone from the ticket takers to the people who solicit donations from the rich and powerful who both have no special expertise in the protection systems and a very good reason to both want to discourage further direct action in their establishment and tell the rich people they’re on their side.
LOL, what? I have a print in my room right now with glass between the art and its frame. And that’s not even a publicly accessible priceless piece of art that’s undergone past attacks. The external frame has no reason to actually touch the artwork.
Pug my guy, all bets are off, every polluting industry is grinding billions to keep this cart on its current track. I’m sure if they could strike at oil execs they would, but have you tried to locate these people? Which mansion are they in at this time of year? Its not realistic. We’re burning alive right now. They need to garner mass attention now, and we’re all sitting here arguing over the efficacy of paint on paper instead of talking about the literal destruction of all life supporting habitats, not even just human. Its that serious.
But it’s the vandalism of art that’s going to turn the tides against that? A few middle class kids getting a handful of months in prison for tossing soup around at an art gallery?
Fuck, if you’re gonna be serious about taking this as a suffragist level crisis, you need suffragist level tactics. You need to riot. You need to attack the places the rich feel safe. Not toss soup on historical artifacts to ‘raise awareness’.
I’m extremely doubtful of that. That wouldn’t feel ‘monumental’ enough. They want to be part of a world-changing event, the bit that people look back and say “This is it, this is when it started!” without understanding the long and complex fight that led to that point. They want to be part of a notable event, not a mass campaign. But my distrust of their motives is beside the point; even if their motives were unimpugnable, this would remain a terrible way to go about things.
Man, the richest people in the world can be tracked with almost hilarious ease. Stunning amounts of information is publicly available. Flight logs, ship entry/exit to ports, publicly announced corpo meetings.
That’s just the thing - it’s not mass attention that the subject needs. The subject HAS mass attention. The issue is that people don’t perceive the seriousness of issue, or believe more is being done about it than actually is, or fall for political rhetoric that promises environmental destruction under the guise of conservation. We HAVE mass attention. People KNOW. But they aren’t on our side, or at least, rather, not on our side in the way that we need.
This is the grueling, ugly, thankless part that no one wants to do, the education, the politiking, the push to reorganize incentives to prioritize climate goals, the miserable prying of fringe supporters to a pro-climate position. And that doesn’t suit people who prefer there to be a single isolated issue they can focus all their attention on and get accolades for - there’s no point where the world collapses onto its knees, tears in its eyes, and cries out “I see now, I see, thank you so much!”
The most ideal realistic scenario is the scenario of women’s rights - in a hundred years, multifaceted efforts may, if we fight for it, render the question of opposing climate change obsolete - but no one is going to admit in a hundred years, save the lunatic fringe, of being pro-oil or the environmental equivalent of the time, just as no one except the lunatic fringe questions women’s suffrage now (I think if we presume that our efforts fighting the issue in the here and now are successful, at the very least the issue then cannot still be oil in 100 years, or we’ve utterly lost in that period of time, but I use oil just as a signifier of that ‘kind’ of position).
The fight will never end. And people get discouraged by that, so they try to hyperfocus to the detriment of actual progress on the matter.
People are just doing whatever they can. I mean what can you do? Nobody is gonna kick in the doors of the execs until the food runs out and the TVs dont turn on, and if you did that it wouldnt stop the machine from turning. Same as if the lizard that manages my company for his mother ship dies, I’m still showing up to work and fixing computers.
I’m not condemning them for doing something small, only trying to emphasize that my issue here is not damaging things in general, but damaging, specifically, historical pieces. It’s just seems like throwing soup at paintings is the wrong approach on every level.