Avante-Garde gets avantier in agit art

Leo da Vinci's Mona Lisa isn't just the world's most famous work of art, it's also a 'destination painting' that draws us to the Louvre in Paris. But it is also a magnet for people with Une Cause. Earlier this week, two very active activists targeted the lady with the mysterious smile and a half-burqa with pumpkin soup at the Louvre. Why? Apparently to highlight food insecurity in France. Fortunately, the 16th-century masterpiece is shielded by bulletproof glass. So, no damage was done.

This attack on the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is not unprecedented. In 1911, a former Louvre employee stole the painting, hiding it for two years. In 1956, a series of defacements, including razor blades, acid and a thrown rock, prompted glass being installed. But La Target continued, as a 2019 mug-throwing incident and a 2022 pastry smear proved. Do such attacks on high-value paintings like Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Monet's Haystacks amount to much? Not unless you count them as being postmodern performance art by themselves, taking the likes of conceptual and performance artists like Marina Abramovic and Tehching Hsieh a few steps further. But after two minutes of Warholian fame, what do we remember? Food insecurity in France? Or the bold strokes of a soup-smeared glass inches above Mona? Let's just name this TikTokesque genre 'agit art'.