The Scream at the National Museum of Norway (file image)
(Picture: NTB/AFP via Getty Images)Two climate activists attempted to glue themselves to Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece The Scream at an Oslo museum.
Two people entered the Munchroom at the National Museum of Norway on Friday morning, but before any damage could be done, they were “immediately taken care of” by museum guards, the Museum said in a statement.
A third person filmed the pair trying to affix to the painting.
Punks. The only thing they accomplish is that art available for all will be more protected. Skrik #munch pic.twitter.com/wPtOQ2OWPK
— Karoline (@karolineisanerd) November 11, 2022
A video shared online said to be of the incident showed museum guards holding two activists with one shouting “I scream for people dying” and another one shouts “I scream when lawmakers ignore science” while a person was shielding the painting from the protesters.
The room where the glass-protected painting is exhibited was “emptied of the public and closed” but reopened at 1pm, the museum said.
Police said there was glue residue on the glass mount.
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 is the latest episode in which climate activists have targeted famous paintings in European museums.
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.
The painting was not damaged and returned to its wall a day later.
Earlier this month, climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum and a similar protest happened in London, where protesters threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery.
In both those cases, the paintings also were not damaged.
