Art Galleries
Credit: Paul Wood/CartoonStock
In a blog about the day-to-day habits that irritate the environmentally conscientious, I didn't expect to find myself writing a post about art galleries. They are very low down on my list of environmental vexations. Certainly, well below my neighbourhood’s blatant disregard for recycling bin rules. (Nb. Children's bicycles do not go into yellow bins.) In fact, if most of humanity were about to be wiped out, I hope we would have enough time to slide a few old paintings into the hallways of the underground seed banks before the mass looting and destruction begins. That way, if any curious aliens eventually turn up, they might find some evidence that human beings didn't just use their creative abilities to plunder natural resources, heat up the planet and create TikTok videos.
Art galleries certainly have high carbon footprints. They utilise a lot of concrete, lighting, and air conditioning; and they regularly box up art and fly it around the world. On the plus side, they also tend to be staffed by progressives, receive government funding and have a lot of roof space. As that is just the right combination needed for a solar panel installation to occur, it is hopeful that their gigantic carbon footprints will increasingly taper off. Regardless, they are important cultural institutions and, even if you are not a big fan of art, I'm sure you will agree they are worth the expenditure of a little bit of carbon. More so than for a shopping mall, at least.
Unlike logging sites and oil rigs, art galleries are not obvious targets for environmental protests, so the fact that they are currently ground zero for climate change activists can seem a little confusing. The connection between art and climate change isn't straightforward or obvious and, for this reason, many people will likely dismiss the stunts as infantile and even a little infuriating. To be honest, irritation was my immediate emotional response the first time I saw a van Gogh painting covered with blended vegetables. That and a discomforting fear that targeting famous works of art with pureed pumpkin would only promote contempt for the environmental movement in general and disdain for vegans in particular.*
I'm someone who is quite concerned about decarbonising, yet I still think it is perfectly fine to value art. If animosity toward these protests was my automatic reaction, won't the people that really need to pay attention (i.e. rich people who jet-set around the world to visit art galleries) very likely have the same response?
When interviewed, the protestors explained that they wanted to point out how ridiculous it was to place a high value on artwork and not on the natural world. They also figured that faux-sabotaging major artworks would get a lot more attention than standing in front of a logging truck in the middle of a forest. They were certainly right about the second part. When the glass covering a da Vinci or van Gogh painting is given a makeover with canned soup, it tends to get a lot of international press. It is not generally positive press, but I doubt the activists mind that too much, as long as people are having a bit of a chitchat and a think about what the environmentalists are doing. That has to be helpful, right?
I'm not so sure. A couple of months ago, several of my colleagues were late to work as an environmental protest caused a massive roadblock during peak hour. They were certainly vocal about it when they finally reached the office, but at no point did anyone reflect on the fact that they would have been on time had they caught the train or bus. We work in the middle of the city and spend all day in an office. Every one of my colleagues could easily catch public transport, but nobody is thinking about their environmental footprint when they opt to drive into work—not even when there is a climate activist dangling off a bridge in front of them.** Isn't the same thing happening with these art gallery protests?
The articles that explained what the environmentalists' intentions were may have led people to ponder the ethics of valuing art and culture over nature, but would they have led to measurable carbon-reducing actions? Probably not. Like news articles that lament the permanent disappearance of Icelandic glaciers and migrating bird species, most people don't make the connection between what they are reading about and their recent SUV upgrade or the fact that they've just installed a cat flap so that Kitty de Litter has free roam of the neighbourhood every night. Climate change is made to seem like something enormous and remote instead of what it really is: too many harmful daily habits and choices of too many humans inflicting too many lacerations on an already wounded planet.
The issue is not that we value art. I'm sure most radical environmentalists respect the artworks they are sticking themselves to as they are careful not to damage them. Nor, I think, are they attempting to offend the artistic community. It is certainly not the fault of da Vinci that millions of people are pumping gargantuan amounts of carbon into the air every year so they can fly halfway around the world to look at his creations. I imagine his carbon footprint was ridiculously low as he obviously preferred to stay in and do a bit of quiet painting. Even modern artists would tend to have lower carbon footprints than the average. Considering what most of today’s artists get paid, it's highly unlikely that this is the community responsible for sending us passed the climate warming tipping point.
In fact, what environmentalists are doing in galleries is, ironically, a form of art. If any of the activists are not the students of arts departments, they are surely sharing an eight-person, three-bedroom, run-down rental with several of them. Artists and environmentalists tend to move in the same circles. I doubt they feel particularly aggrieved by the art, or even the galleries. Works of cultural importance needs to be stored somewhere and better there than in the private homes of the unacceptably rich. I also don't believe the environmentalists when they say that it is a symbolic demonstration designed to highlight the irrationality of our value system. Our value system is irrational. But it is our devotion to consumerism, not high art, that’s the problem.
Although I’m not so concerned about the environmental impact of art, galleries could still be a useful place to point out wonton mindless consumerism. And maybe this is what the protestors were really getting at, but none of the media articles I read noted it. The activism appears as an act of defiance against overvalued art, but the focus should be more clearly targeting the people visiting. I don't mean throwing cans of soup over them. Splattering the great artworks was perfectly sensible if the protestors wanted to get a bit of media attention without being arrested for assault. I just think it might have improved things if there was a clearer take-home message.
Instead of standing in front of a splattered painting with 'Just Stop Oil' across their fronts, the t-shirts should have read, 'How much carbon did you burn coming here to not see this?' Possibly not as catchy as 'Just Stop Oil', but it would have made a clearer point. It would have reminded people that, while the gallery entry might be free, how we decide to spend our time has an environmental cost and we need to take that into consideration when we decide what to do, how to get there, and how often to go.
In an ideal world, sabotaging the outer casing of the Mona Lisa would have made anyone visiting the Louvre that day reconsider their decision to take a plane halfway around the world just to stand in a crowded room and look at a painting they could have had a perfectly adequate look at using a phone and Google Images. It is highly unlikely that anyone who witnessed the soup-throwing incident had that thought. In video footage of the event, most appear far too busy trying to navigate their phone cameras around all the other phone cameras and the frantic security personnel in order to get a good shot of the pumpkin soup overlay for their social media feed. I'm sure they were all delighted they went to the Louvre that day.
In fact, all this attention on art galleries might have just the opposite effect that these protests should have. Galleries might suddenly appear cool, exciting and a little rebellious to a whole new audience; and people who hadn't really considered visiting them might decide to add 'seeing great artworks' to their bucket list. If that means visiting local galleries, it would be perfectly fine. Catching a bus into the CBD to have a look around your city's cultural centres is certainly better than driving to your local shopping mall and buying a whole lot of stuff you don't really need, but most people only go to galleries when they are travelling and travelling is the pinnacle of mass experience consumerism.
By mass experience consumerism, I mean this current developed-world obsession with doing everything and going everywhere, which is driven by the sense that other people are doing everything and going everywhere, and you’re not. A.k.a. FOMO. How much jet fuel is wasted on people flying to European cities to walk around art galleries that would, had they really thought about it, been just as happy holidaying by a river or beach somewhere in their own state? Take along a case of local wine and an Irvine Welsh novel, and they’d be delighted they skipped the Europe trip.
I'm not suggesting nobody ever travel and that we all have to opt out of every experience that involves expending a bit of carbon. People just need to start factoring carbon into their decisions about what they choose to do, where they choose to go and how they choose to get there. Nobody needs to get on a plane every year in order to take a vacation. There are few people anywhere in the world who can't find somewhere perfectly holiday-worthy within driving, train or bus distance. It might be more fun to take a plane to Paris, Hawaii or the Cayman Islands, but those trips shouldn't happen often, even if you can afford them.
If all the bi-annual vacation flyers set a rule they would only board a plane for a holiday once every three years, not only would their emissions shrink, but they might find that they enjoy their occasional overseas trips more. They would have looked forward to them for longer, which would make them feel more special. Occasional flyers will also save money, support local tourism, get to know their own country better, and have less guilt about the carbon they do emit on holidays (i.e. for all those extra bottles of wine). They will possibly have saved a bit of annual leave too, having cut down on the travel time for local holidays, which means that the special overseas trip can be a little longer. And that means more time to visit all those cool, exciting and slightly rebellious galleries while they're there (taking local public transport, of course).
We need to factor in our carbon footprint when we make decisions about what we are going to do, and if the 4,000 ‘essential experiences’ on our bucket lists all involve flying, we need to consider if they are worth it. Some of them will be. And sometimes it will just be enough to say, “wouldn't it be nice to visit Rome” and then use not visiting Rome as an excuse to watch a Roberto Benigni movie and eat pasta. Art galleries can help by having all of their special exhibitions online, so that everybody can enjoy the art without having to blow their annual carbon budget getting there. That would particularly benefit all those that would also have to blow their annual grocery and rental budget for an airfare (e.g. art students and their environmentalist roommates).
I don’t imagine the art gallery staff would mind if a few more environmentalists visit the website instead of popping in for a visit, and I doubt the planet would be any worse off.
The Quiet Environmentalist
Further Reading
Throwing soup at a Van Gogh? Why climate activists are targeting art (nationalgeographic.com)
The Real Reason Protesters Threw Soup at the Mona Lisa | TIME
Why Climate Activists Are Throwing Food at Art | TIME
Mona Lisa: Protesters throw soup at da Vinci painting - BBC News
Just Stop Oil climate activist explains why they threw soup on van Gogh : NPR
* The fact that the protestors opted to throw cans of vegetable soup rather than 'chicken and corn' or 'pea and ham' varieties has been noted. A vegan soup is the only sensible option for an environmental protest. I also like to think they considered which soup option would have had the lowest carbon footprint and went for the organic, local variety, if their budget allowed. Whatever the choice, if their demonstrations don't result in the political or cultural change they are hoping for, at least they can be sure that all that attention on soup put a few people around the world in the mood for some blended roast pumpkin or a good minestrone. If a few thousand people had a vegetable soup for dinner instead of a pepperoni pizza, the activists should consider it well worth the trouble.
** It is worth mentioning that I was definitely more aggravated than my colleagues were about their commute to work being commandeered by environmentalists. We work in an office, which means nothing we do is particularly important. Nobody was waiting to be served or saved while they were delayed. There may have been some emails to send, but it takes most people well over an hour to build up the will needed to respond to any of them. Therefore, nothing had been missed except the half hour spent listening to other colleagues lament badly behaved children, incompetent spouses, the escalating cost of living, and their perpetual lack of sleep; followed by the half hour spent going for a coffee.
My late-arriving colleagues gave the appearance of being terribly aggrieved, but it was quite clear from their animated retelling of the event multiple times throughout the day that they were actually thrilled to be able to tell a story that's central theme wasn't the frustrations of parenting. (Having an excuse to spend an extra hour out of the office would also have helped to elevate their mood.)
As the one person in my office that catches a train, I was not late to work—despite wishing that I could be. I would really prefer it if environmentalists caused a disruption on my train line, instead of targeting major roadways. That way, I could be rewarded for good environmental behaviour by getting an extra hour on a quiet carriage to read my book. It would make much more sense if all the people in my office who choose to drive to work are there on time, instead of me. They can answer my tedious emails for an hour or two, while I'm relaxing between stations. That sounds delightful. It might even inspire a few of them to consider using public transport.
Published 03 Mar 2024
