Painting of Edvard Munch targeted by activists

Copenhagen –

Norwegian police said the pair tried in vain to attach themselves to Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece The Scream at a museum in Oslo on Friday.

Police said the three were “under custody” after being alerted by the Norwegian National Museum. According to the Norwegian news agency NTB, a third party filmed the two men as they tried to attach them to the painting.

The museum said the room containing the glass-protected paintings was “emptied to the public and closed” and plans to reopen as soon as possible.

Police said there was glue residue on the glass mount.

An environmental activist from the Norwegian organization Stopp oljeletinga (Norway’s Stop Oil Exploration Organization) was behind the stunt, saying he “wanted to pressure parliamentarians to stop oil exploration”. It is a major producer of oil and gas.

This was the latest episode in which climate activists targeted a famous painting in a European museum.

Last October, two Belgian activists were sentenced to two months in prison for targeting Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in a Dutch museum. The painting was undamaged and was put back on the wall the next day.

Earlier this month, climate change protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum. A similar protest took place in London, where protesters threw soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery. In both cases the painting was undamaged.