A trip to the National Gallery may start to resemble a journey through Heathrow, thanks to the vandalism of environmental activists. The Gallery announced yesterday that visitors will now not be allowed to bring liquids into the building, which means taking the existing checks on bags to a new level. There are already queues to get into the Gallery and now the wait to get in will take that bit longer; I wonder how warmly the visitors waiting to have their water bottles confiscated will feel about Just Stop Oil and the other environmental organisations which were behind the five attacks on pictures at the gallery since July 2022 which made the security regime necessary.
I had a taster when I went to the press view for the (excellent) new Constable exhibition this week. I went via the Fortnum’s food hall for a few bits and pieces including some pasta sauce…tomato. And it was only when I got to the bag check and the nice security guard looked at it that it dawned on me that this wasn’t the thing to bring into a gallery where anti-oil activists had chucked tins of Heinz soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers the other week.
