After a climate activist covered Claude Monet’s 1873 painting Poppies at Argenteuil with a large sticker at the Musée D’Orsay on Saturday, French culture minister Rachida Dati responded on X calling for a new law punishing activists.
“Once again, a cultural institution and a work of art are targeted by iconoclasts: the painting “Les Coquelicots” by Claude Monet at @MuseeOrsay!” Dati wrote on Saturday. “This destruction of art by delinquents cannot be justified in any way. It must stop! I contacted the [Justice Minister], for the implementation of a penal policy adapted to this new form of delinquency which attacks the most noble aspect of our cohesion: culture!”
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The Monet painting Coquelicots (Poppies at Argenteuill) is one of the artist’s most recognizable works, and is currently featured in the museum’s exhibition “Paris 1874: Inventing Impressionism” on view until July 14.
The protest group Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) posted a thread on X that said the image represented a “nightmarish” version of the same painting of a field of poppies in 2100 if “no radical measures are taken to stop climate change by then.”
The group of environmental activists advocates for sustainable food production in response to the climate crisis through protests at high-profile artworks at European museums, including one at the Louvre last month.
The Riposte Alimentaire climate activist who protested at the Musée D’Orsay wore a white t-shirt that said “+4° L’Enfer”, a reference to the significantly higher likelihood of severe heatwaves described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2023 report if there is a 4 degree Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in global temperature.
A spokesperson for the Musée d’Orsay told The Art Newspaper the painting was rehung and the exhibition was reopened on June 1 after the work was examined and treated by a restorer. “The activist was arrested and kept in police custody until yesterday, when she was temporary released; she’ll be judged by the court on July 2.”
The comment from Dati about the protest Musée d’Orsay came soon after the indictment of performance artist Deborah De Robertis on June 3. A French prosecutor announced that the artist and two others were charged with damage and theft of “cultural property” after five artworks, including Gustav Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde, were tagged with the slogan #MeToo in early May while on display at the Centre Pompidou-Metz.
The news of Dati’s tweet was first reported by The Art Newspaper.