On Sunday, activists from the Young Extinction Rebellion movement held a protest in front of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Two activists held a modified image of the Dutch artist’s famous work, in which the painting’s faces were submerged under water. “There is no art on a flooded planet,” the post reads. The performance was broadcast live via Instagram.

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A post published by Extinction Rebellion Nederland (@extinctionrebellionnl)

Beneath the coats, ten protesters aged between 15 and 22 were wearing T-shirts that read “Stop Fossil Fuel Funding” with a picture of a painting captioned “They Can’t Swim”.

“The science is clear, we can no longer ignore it: the earth is warming, sea levels are rising and the weather is getting more extreme. Obviously, this is related to the production of fossil fuels, an industry that the Rijksmuseum is still funding,” 19-year-old protester Yara said during the protest, referring to the museum’s partnerships with the KLM airline and investment bank ING.

Rjiksmuseum staff quickly placed blue and white warning signs in front of the protesters, drawing visitors away from the painting.

“We have put them in their place so that we can do business without interruption,” said a museum spokesman for the Dutch broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting.

The protesters were ordered to leave after fifteen minutes.

A spokesman for the museum also told NOS that the Rijksmuseum did not intend to sue. Unlike several other climate protests in front of artworks at museums in Europe and Canada, in this protest, protesters did not throw food or paint at paintings, or stick their hands into display cases or frames.

The protest took place at a time of great interest for the Rijksmuseum. Tickets for the highly anticipated and critically acclaimed retrospective of Johannes Vermeer sold out just two days after it opened to the public. The exhibition will end on June 4, 2023. Demand was so great that the museum announced on Monday that ticket sales were suspended “until further notice” due to problems with its website.

Source Artnet