… but the painting was untouched.
Is it really a protest if £8,000 in floor damage matters more than the message?
On October 9, 2024, two activists from Youth Demand had placed a large poster depicting a Palestinian mother with her child in the Gaza Strip over the protective glass of Pablo Picasso’s painting Motherhood (1901).
Immediately afterward, they had poured red water-based paint onto the floor of the National Gallery in London, shouting slogans in support of the Palestinian cause and demanding that the United Kingdom cut trade ties with Israel.
In recent days, the trial concluded with a verdict finding Jai Halai, a 25-year-old employee of the British National Health Service, and Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, a 23-year-old political science student, guilty of criminal damage.
At the center of the trial, however, was not any damage caused to Picasso’s painting: the charges brought by the prosecution instead concerned the damage caused by the paint poured on the floor and on the surrounding elements of the room, which cost the National Gallery approximately £8,000.
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