Over 100 artists and art historians call on judge not to jail Van Gogh activists

A large group of artists, curators and art historians have appealed to a judge not to impose a jail sentence on two activists who threw tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting.

The Just Stop Oil protesters, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, both 22, were found guilty of criminal damage in July. Judge Christopher Hehir warned them to be “prepared in practical and emotional terms to go to prison”.

But in an open letter published ahead of the sentencing expected this Friday, 125 artists and art workers – including Fiona Banner, Love Ssega and actor Juliet Stevenson – have appealed to Judge Hehir not to impose a custodial sentence. “We are concerned by the courts’ defence of a false notion of artistic purity in their judgement and sentencing,” write the signatories. “Art can be and frequently is, iconoclasm. These activists should not receive custodial sentences for an act that connects entirely to the artistic canon.”

The letter goes on to list many examples of prominent artists who have subverted existing art pieces in their work. “The work of all these iconoclasts, often far more physically destructive than the work of JSO, is now venerated in museums around the world,” observes the letter, adding: “Plummer and Holland knew the painting was protected from the soup by a solid pane of glass when they threw the red-orange missive, making a Pollock-esque splatter across the mustard yellow, drooping blooms. Their iconoclasm was temporary, a sight to behold to make their protest.”

The signatories also point to the long history of protest targeting artworks and art spaces, from the Suffragettes to Liberate Tate’s unsanctioned performance interventions spilling oil inside Tate galleries to protest the BP sponsorship. “At first the reception was outrage at such iconoclasm, but as the social tide turned the group’s artworks were featured in Tate’s archive,” the letter notes.

Plummer and Holland are due to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court in London on Friday 27 September. Defend Our Juries, Just Stop Oil, Greenpeace and other groups will mark the occasion with a ‘silent exhibition of political prisoners past and present’ outside the court, to show support for the two activists and the right to peaceful protest.

Over the last year, a growing number of peaceful protesters have ended up in jail in the UK, in some cases for years, drawing criticism from the UN and leading human rights organisations. This is largely the result of draconian anti-protest laws introduced under the last Conservative government. Last summer, a coalition of nearly 100 civil society organisations wrote to the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, urging the government to reverse the crackdown on peaceful protest instigated by the previous government. 

Areeba Hamid, Co-Executive Director at Greenpeace UK, who coordinated the letter alongside Liberate Tate, said:

“We sincerely hope the judge will listen carefully to the artists’ arguments. We need to stop locking away peaceful protesters in our overcrowded prisons simply for raising the alarm on a burning planet. Protest can be disruptive and inconvenient, but it’s inconvenient protest that has led to the end of slavery, votes for women, basic workers’ rights and the ban on commercial whaling. For every climate activist who is sent to prison, Britain loses some of its standing as a progressive actor in the world. This absurd crackdown on the right to protest was orchestrated by the last government, but its chilling consequences are unfolding on Keir Starmer’s watch. Ministers should agree to campaigners’ demands for an urgent meeting with the Attorney General and look again at the Conservatives’ anti-protest laws that have got us into this mess.”

Darren Sutton, from art-activist collective Liberate Tate said:

“When Liberate Tate started making performance interventions to protest BP sponsorship of Tate in 2010, while the Deepwater Horizon disaster raged, we were dismissed as irreverent outsiders as we spilled oil-like molasses on pristine Tate marble. Now, 14 years on, our campaign is long won, museum and gallery directors vie for the strength of their position on tackling climate change, and all but one have shunned oil sponsorship. The initial reaction to soup thrown will undoubtedly shift as we as a society catch up with the threat climate change poses to our way of life. Phoebe and Anna’s act will be seen as the poetic protest it surely is, unworthy of custodial punishment.”

ENDS

Read the full letter here:

Read more about the silent exhibition outside Southwark Crown Court here: https://defendourjuries.org/free-political-prisoners-campaign-launches/ 

Contact: Greenpeace UK news team on 020 7865 8255 and sgelmini@greenpeace.org