Climate activists have targeted Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece The Scream at an Oslo museum, Norwegian police said. Two people attempted to glue themselves to the artwork while a third filmed the pair, Norwegian news agency NTB said.
The famous painting – which depicts a waif-like figure appearing to scream – was undamaged while glue residue was found on its glass mount. Police said officers were called to the National Museum of Norway on Friday (November 11) and had three people under “control”.
The room where the glass-protected painting is exhibited was “emptied of the public and closed” and will reopen as soon as possible, the museum said. The rest of the venue remained open.
Environmental activists from the Norwegian organisation Stopp Oljeletinga — Norwegian for Stop Oil Exploration — were behind the stunt, saying they “wanted to pressure lawmakers into stopping oil exploration”. Norway is a major producer of offshore oil and gas.
It comes as world leaders are meeting at the COP27 summit in Egypt this week, and is the latest in a string of targeted attacks on famous paintings by climate activists. Two Belgian activists who targeted Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in a Dutch museum in October were sentenced to two months in prison.
Earlier this month, climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum while Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers had soup thrown over it at London’s National Gallery. In all three cases, the paintings were also not damaged.
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