'It’s tricky, and the fact that it’s tricky is what drew me to it,' Alex Margo Arden tells me. The artist started making work inspired by protest actions in 2022, when Just Stop Oil activists made headlines by throwing soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery. ‘Safety Curtain’, her solo exhibition at London’s Auto Italia, looks at various moments when arts institutions have become protest sites.
It contains a number of paintings of recognisable artworks disrupted by activist groups, frozen in time moments after the event — red paint smeared across a Monet landscape; the Mona Lisa violated with pastry residue. Arden notes that, in most cases, the artworks themselves are safer than they seem. Their protective glazes bear the brunt of the damage, and inspired the exhibition’s title.
