#museum protest

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Guerilla Girls 1989

"Conscience of the art world"

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The notion of museums as popular spaces open to all has contributed to their identification as sites for political struggle. Yet it is perhaps an unsurprising irony that as arts institutions increasingly represented themselves as democratic, political, and civic spaces, they came to rely more and more upon funding from the private sector. Faced with proving their value as they competed for scraps of government money and for private donors looking to maximize their philanthropic impact, museums justified their existence by affirming their public mandate and social utility, advancing the narrative that art institutions are privileged spaces for political discourse. Individual grants, gifts, and bequests fund the diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion initiatives that open the museum to broader publics, and fuel the exhibitions, acquisitions, and rehangs that foreground artists and traditions beyond the Western canon.  But despite the tantalizing whiff of democracy they seem to exude, museums are not democratic institutions, and never have been. That today’s protesters see the museum as a suitable point of access through which our ruling class may be addressed speaks to the almost complete depletion of real recourse elsewhere; the almost total lack of strategic pressure points from which to attack an ironclad and unimpeachable oligarchy. In particular, the global scope of the demands associated with museum protest reflects the difficulty of meaningful engagement in international politics from the metropole. Because the points of contact between the layperson and the multinational corporation are so limited, museum donors and board members — and the museum itself by extension — have been framed as targets in the fight against imperialism.

Rachel Hunter Himes: Museum Pessimism. To what extent is it possible to apply pressure to the capitalist class through museums? In: n+1 Issue 43 : Unreal. Summer 2022

"During the late ’60s and early ’70s, accreditation was awarded to museums on the basis of their capacity to manage their collections and maintain their facilities. But in the ’90s, a new mandate emerged. Museums, faced with depleted public funding, emergent global tourism, and the birth of the experience economy, began their transformation into what have been called “visitor-centered” institutions."

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Scientifiques en rébellion | Des membres de Scientifiques en rébellion et d’Extinction Rebellion relaxé·es par la Cour d’appel de Paris

La Cour d’appel de Paris a relaxé le 9 janvier 2026 4 scientifiques et activistes suite à une action menée au Muséum national d’histoire nat

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"A Stockholm court on Monday acquitted six activists who smeared red paint on the display cade protecting a Claude Monet painting, ruling that they had not intended to damage the work."

Swedish Court Acquits Climate Activists Who Smeared Paint on Monet Painting

A Stockholm court on Monday acquitted six activists who smeared red paint on the display cade protecting a Claude Monet painting

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Sich morgens aus Protest gegen Lebensmittelverschwendung auf die Straße kleben und nachmittags dann mit Lebensmitteln auf Gemälde werfen – das ist verrückt.

Christiane Schenderlein (CDU/CSU) - Strafen für Straßenblockierer und Museumsrandalierer. Deutscher Bundestag / 10.11.2022

(Warum es eher effektiv als verrückt ist: Notiz: Klimaproteste im Museum)

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These stunts had started two years before, in October 2022, in London’s National Gallery when two young British women threw cream-of-tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers. They then knelt below the painting and glued their hands to the wall. “What’s worth more, art or life?” 21-year-old Phoebe Plummer yelled. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” Video of the incident ricocheted all over the world — 1.7 million viewers on TikTok and 7.1 million on Twitter within a few days. In terms of cultural traction per protester minute, this was perhaps the greatest protest in climate history.

Elizabeth Weil - The Rise of the Climate Anti-Hero. Soup on a van Gogh may be more strategic than it seems. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/climate-change-activists-protests-art-antiheroes.html

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Museum Aesthetic ist ein seltsames Schlagwort, wie Haidy Geismar beschreibt, sind das so Bildgenres, die auf Social Media als alltägliche Archive entstehen, durch die Bottom-Up Klassifizierungsstragien der Hashtags greifbar. Wir können es mit anderen, eigenen forschend durchkreuzen, Museumproteste, Kunstberührung, und das ist hier die gezeigte Gegenüberstellung. Die Durchkreuzung passiert in Wirklichkeit im Museum, wir vollziehen sie hier nur nach, von um 1900 bis heute, vom Fotografieren bis zum Klecksen, von der Pose zum Protest. Die Aktionen und Interaktionen in den Museumsräumen akkumulieren sich und zirkulieren in den Netzen, die Abbildungen sind keine Dokumentation, sie sind Teil der politischen Auseinandersetzung. Für eine kritische oder transformative Museologie bleibt es eine wichtige Aufgabe, die Porträts, in ihrer reflexiven oder aktivistischen Strategie, als Teil der Bildwelten von Museen zu begreifen, und als einen essentiellen Teil der Streits um die Sammlungen.

Bilder:

fabiansteinhauer, zdf, Archivbild Cornelius-Saal 1897, peoplematchingartworks, 1914 Zeitungsillustation, Mwazulu Diyabanza

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