Climate activists throw mashed potatoes at Monet masterpiece

Climate activists threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum today to protest fossil fuel extraction, but caused no damage to the artwork.

Two campaigners from the group Last Generation, which has called on the German government to take drastic action to protect the climate and stop using fossil fuels, approached Monet’s Les Meules at Potsdam’s Barberini Museum and threw a thick substance over the painting and its gold frame.

The group later confirmed on Twitter the mixture was mashed potatoes.

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The two activists, both wearing orange high-visibility vests, also glued themselves to the wall below the painting.

“If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting!” the group wrote on Twitter.

They also posted a video of the incident.

Four people were involved in the incident, according to local media.

The Barberini Museum said that because the painting was enclosed in glass, the mashed potatoes didn't cause any damage.

The painting, part of Monet's Haystacks series, is expected to be back on display on Wednesday.

“While I understand the activists’ urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands,” museum director Ortrud Westheider said in a statement.

According to local media, police said they had responded to the incident but further information about arrests or charges was not immediately available.

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The Monet painting is the latest artwork in a museum to be targeted by climate activists to draw attention to global warming.

British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery earlier this month.

Just Stop Oil activists also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable’s The Hay Wain in the National Gallery.