Hard Truths: Can an Activist
Smear Food on Art Without Consequences?
With a world in crisis and an art market spinning out of control, ace art-world consultants Chen and Lampert deliver hard truths in response to questions sent by Art in America readers far & wide:
Barbara Kelly
I'm inspired by the messaging and guerilla tactics of the climate change activists who’ve been smearing food on paintings.
I want to do this same thing and already know what museum and artwork I want to attack, but to be honest, I’m scared.
How much trouble could I really get in?
Activists are truly turning up the heat on museums with their push to get the public to chill the Earth before mass extinction. What’s the point of hoarding masterpieces when there won’t be anybody left to see them?
That’s how much trouble we are actually in. Stop worrying about your personal safety and start perpetrating climate-action art spectacles that make a definitive difference.
Perhaps you will find yourself: throwing warm sauerkraut at a Jordan Wolfson robot, Gorilla-Gluing your taint to a painting by Dana Schutz, splotching a cream cronut on a Chuck Close, or pointedly urinating on an Andres Serrano photograph.
Keep your manifesto on-hand to shout at befuddled bystanders, or better yet: write it on your chest because you are about to be the main attraction at the museum.
— ART IN AMERICA January 19, 2023
