On Thursday, a judge acquitted two environmental activists who glued themselves to a J.M.W. Turner painting at Manchester Art Gallery in July 2022.
The Just Stop Oil protesters stuck themselves to the frame of Tomson’s Aeolian Harp (1809) and wrote the words “No New Oil” on the Just Stop Oil logo on the gallery’s floor in chalk.
The environmental group said Paul Bell, 24 – is who studying for a Phd in climate impacts, and energy advisor Edred Whittingham, 27, appeared at Manchester Magistrate’s court charged with criminal damage of less than $6,500.
“This acquittal represents a chink of light in an otherwise very dark picture of state repression and judicial malice,” a Just Stop Oil spokesperson said in a statement. “We are grateful for the few within the legal system who understand that Just Stop Oil supporters are acting in self-defence and seeking to defend life on earth, while the law is protecting those who are committed to its destruction.”
After the hearing, Bell told reporters that his actions “were not out of hatred of art, but for a love of art.”
“The artists of tomorrow and many around the world right now are having their chance to create stolen by the climate crisis,” he said. “We have a right to art and a right to life. The expansion of fossil fuels directly opposes this. I am very pleased that in Manchester Magistrates Court the Judge found our actions to be proportionate.”
Whittingham said he and Bell were “rightly at liberty” but pointed to the cases of their fellow activists Pheobe Plummer and Anna Holland. Last week, they were sentenced to 24 months and 20 months in a London prison respectively for tossing soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888) at London’s National Gallery in October 2022. “Their sentence demonstrated that our justice system is broken, the law is failing usand the judiciary and courts are complicit in genocide,” he added.
Three Just Stop Oil protesters were found guilty of wilfully obstructing a highway in November last year after a trial at Stratford Magistrates’ Court in the UK earlier this week.
One of the convicted shouted “Shame on you” as the judge handed down the sentence.
The post “Two Just Stop Oil Activists Acquitted by Judge After Glueing Themselves to Turner Painting at Manchester Art Gallery” by George Nelson was published on 10/04/2024 by www.artnews.com