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Museums in Madrid, Andalucia and Barcelona are upping their security on priceless works of art after a Tutankhamun replica mummy and several paintings at the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona became the latest targets of climate change activists.

 

Two activists from the organisation Futuro Vegetal were filmed removing plastic coke bottles from under their clothes and covering the displays with a black liquid representing oil and what looked like jam, which was supposed to symbolise blood. The demonstrators then unfurled a banner bearing the message “COPCA COLA ++2.5º.”

 

This most recent wave of vandalism is in protest of the COP27 summit which is currently being held in Egypt and is sponsored by beverage giant CocaCola.

 

The activists fled the scene before the police arrived and although the room had to be closed for the day for cleaning, the museum has confirmed that none of the pieces were damaged.

 

Posting a picture of the demonstration on social media the group wrote: “We bathe the showcases of the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona with ‘blood and oil’ to alert about the climate emergency. We can no longer stand that governments wash their image in COPs to deceive the population without taking real measures.”

 

They added that COP27 “is sponsored by this multinational, a corporation identified as the world’s largest contributor to plastic pollution” and stressed that “the rise in global temperature will cause an unstable climate and serious consequences throughout the planet.”

 

Following this latest attack, as well as the smearing of Van Gogh’s ‘The Sunflowers’ with ketchup in the National Gallery in London and Monet’s ‘Grainstacks’ with mashed potato in Potsdam, Germany, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports in Andalucia has confirmed that security will be reinforced in museums across the community “in the next few days”.

 

Elsewhere in Madrid, surveillance has been intensified in the Reina Sofía and Thyssen museums after activists vandalised the frames of two paintings at the Prado Museum. All three venues have increased the number of plain clothes officers guarding the artwork on top of all the usual security measures.

 

Image: Futuro Vegetal on Twitter