Climate Change Activists Occupy Guggenheim Atrium

Members of the ecological activist organization Extinction Rebellion on November 18 occupied the spiraling central atrium of New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where they variously chanted, delivered speeches asserting the obligation of museums to fight climate change, and unfurled banners alternately reading “No Art on a Dead Planet” and “No Artists on a Dead Planet.” The effort began around 5 p.m. on a Saturday, one of the institution’s busiest days of the week, coincidental with the museum’s weekly pay-what-you-wish hours.

The action was allowed to proceed largely uninterrupted by museum officials, and lasted until the Guggenheim’s 8 p.m. close, at which point those demonstrators refusing to leave the premises were arrested.RelatedNEW YORK’S CHEIM AND READ SHUTTERING AFTER 26 YEARSMANAL ALDOWAYAN TO REPRESENT SAUDI ARABIA AT 2024 VENICE BIENNALE Extinction Rebellion the next day took their message across Central Park, to the American Museum of Natural History, where members staged a “die-in” in front of the massive replica Barosaurus skeleton that graces the museum’s rotunda. According to theNew York Post, a nearby entrance was temporarily closed, with demonstrators kept from entering the museum further.

The group earlier this month staged a protest action at blue-chip auction house Christie’s, temporarily halting a sale of Impressionist and modernist works on paper. Extinction Rebellion’s avowed aim is to push arts and cultural institutions to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. “‘No museums on a dead planet!’ is a climate justice rallying cry,” the organization averred in astatement.“It poses the philosophical question implicit in this threat to our collective survival: With the whole world at risk, what is any of this even for? Why do we have exhibitions at all, and why do we have museums?” The group has roots in England, the home country of Just Stop Oil, who in recent months have gained wide notoriety for their efforts to bring attention to the disastrous effects of climate change by attacking artworks with instruments and substances includinghammers,mashed potatoes, and, most famously,tomato soup..