Climate protestor smears paint on case housing Degas sculpture in D.C.
Climate protestors have smeared red and black paint on a case of a pedestal that houses the Degas sculpture ‘Little Dancer Aged Fourteen’ at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.. The smearing took place on Thursday, April 27th, in the hope that it would bring attention to the urgent state of the climate and get President Biden to do more to solve it.
The protestors, later identified as Joanna Smith from New York City and Tim Martin of Raleigh, North Carolina, both from the climate group Declare Emergency, covered their hands in paint and smothered paint on the pedestal and case before being removed from the gallery by police.
Smith had turned to the crowd in the gallery and said, “The Earth is beautiful, and we’re destroying it with climate change.” The director of the gallery, Kaywin Feldman, said that the gallery is against that kind of protest and subsequently shut down the room in which ‘Little Dancer’ is showcased.
Feldman said, “We unequivocally denounce this physical attack on one of our works of art and will continue to share information as it becomes available.” The climate protest in D.C. follows several other protests of its kind across the world, including in London, where activists threw a tin of tomato soup at a Vincent Van Gogh painting.
