Climate Activists Dumped an Oily Black Substance Over a Gustav Klimt Painting in Vienna

In an act that has astonishingly become commonplace across the art world, climate activists threw an oily black substance over Gustav Klimt’s 1910-15 painting, Death and Life, at the Leopold Museum in Vienna.

While one of the men was being detained by security, the other proceeded in gluing his hand to the glass protecting the work. The two members of Letzte Generation Österreich (Last Generation Austria) proclaimed that they were protesting their nation’s use of “oil and gas drilling”, which they equated as “a death sentence to society”.

“When social unrest breaks out due to increasing crop failures, no art is safe,” the group tweeted. The painting was not harmed, but according to museum’s restoration team, damage to the glass and frame protecting the art is “evident and significant”.

🛢️EILT: Klimt's "Tod und Leben" im Leopold Museum mit Öl überschüttet🛢️

Menschen der Letzten Generation haben heute im Leopold Museum das Klimt-Gemälde "Tod und Leben" mit Öl überschüttet. Neue Öl- und Gasbohrungen sind ein Todesurteil für die Menschheit. pic.twitter.com/4QKAklB9Af

— Letzte Generation Österreich (@letztegenAT) November 15, 2022

Of course, today’s news comes in light of a number of similar events that have shaken up the art world — each of which have involved common food products, such as soup, along with the activist glueing their head or hand to the targeted piece.

While many in the art community share climate concerns, the Leopold’s director, Hans-Peter Wipplinger, said that “attacking works of art is definitely the wrong way to implement the targeted goal of preventing the predicted climate collapse.”