The influence of a well-known picture La Grande Odalisque by Ingres was altered by Guerrilla Girls to include a gorilla mask. Featured image: guerrillagirls.com.

What is more valuable, life or art? questioned this month's protestors Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in a nod to the suffragette who cut Velázquez's Rokeby Venus

You can acquire another image, but while they are murdering Mrs. Pankhurst, you cannot get a life. These were Mary Richardson's statements before she entered London's National Gallery on March 10, 1914, and hacked Velázquez's Rokeby Venus with a meat cutter (1647–51). She broke the glass and repeatedly scratched Velázquez's idealized nude in opposition to the continued detention of British activist Emmeline Pankhurst. Following that, Richardson received a six-month jail term.

Last kind of demonstration—as well as Richardson's words—resonated this month when Just Stop Oil protesters Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer made international news by pouring soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888). They attached themselves with adhesive to the National Gallery wall in London and said, "What is more valuable, life or art? Is it more valuable than... justice?

Grabbing attention and sparking conversation … the Just Stop Oil protest this month. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Whatever you may think of the prank, Plummer was in agreement that "it is ridiculous." In the end, she continues, "it worked for getting people's attention and starting a conversation so we can ask the questions that matter." According to Margaret Klein Salamon, executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund, which provides funding for Just Stop Oil, the Van Gogh demonstration may have been the most effective climate movement action I've seen in the previous eight years in terms of news attention. A breakthrough occurred.

Art has been utilized by activists as a means of protest and as a publicity tool for ages. We draw inspiration from the civil rights movement, the suffragettes, and the gay movement, Holland said in an interview with Frieze. Although less aggressive than that, I like to believe that our way of just tossing soup onto the glass is just as attention-grabbing.

Interacting with institutions and artworks is a powerful approach to generate discussion, debate, and change. Both have the potential to change the current situation, which gives them both power. Institutions are settings where discussions of all kinds should take place because of their status as global cultural hubs. An example from more recent times is Nan Goldin's effective campaign Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (Pain), which exposed the malfeasance that caused the OxyContin problem and resulted in hundreds of cultural organizations cutting ties to the Sackler brand.

Similar to other forms of expression, art may reflect or inspire change. Even while it may not seem radical today, when Van Gogh's paintings first appeared, the establishment strongly opposed them, as did the impressionist-inspired manner in which he worked. They later had a significant impact on the development of modern art.

The potential of a piece of art to transcend generations and cultural boundaries is another aspect of its power. Sunflowers, which had a different meaning for Van Gogh in the 1880s, can now signify a variety of things, including the death of crops and, as the Just Stop Oil protesters point out, "the displacement of 33 million people by apocalyptic floods in Pakistan and the absolute ruination of 36 million lives by the famines in east Africa." Holland writes, "However, all it took to get people talking more was for two young individuals to hurl soup at a picture. This begs the question: Do we appreciate painted ones more than actual ones—real ones that will ensure the survival of our planet—as a society?

The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez at the National Gallery. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Images, especially recognizable ones, have the ability to appeal to a broad audience and make messages understandable. The Guerrilla Girls, who founded in 1985 when MoMA failed to include more than 17 women and 8 artists of color (out of 169 artists) in a significant survey show on painting and sculpture, are among the most successful artist-activists of modern times.

Since they were "free" in terms of money and free from the patriarchy-ridden museums, they marched to the streets in silence and throughout the night to express their indignation. They pasted posters on walls near to museums to shock and educate the audience while exposing the truth about the absence of equality in institutions with bright, loud images and text splashed with startling facts.

As they once told me, "Women artists were excited and empowered, and everyone else was really pissed off," it was disruptive from the start. (See, there are always issues with change.) How Many Women Artists Had One-Person Exhibits at NYC Art Museums Last Year?, a billboard they created in 1985, posed the appropriate question and revealed that none had exhibitions at the Guggenheim, the Met, or the Whitney, and just one at the Modern (now MoMA).

Most notably, they questioned the disparity between the number of exposed female bodies and the female artists on display at the Met. Less than 5% of the painters in the Modern Art categories are women, but 85% of the nudists are female, they reasoned after attaching a gorilla mask to Ingres' La Grande Odalisque (1814). Less than 4% of the artists in the Modern Art areas are women, yet 76% of the nudists are female, according to a 2012 review of the data that showed no improvement.

Using a recognizable image, or something that is "beautiful and valued," both were able to keep in the public's mind and draw attention to, as Plummer put it, "the questions that matter." It may seem absurd to put a gorilla mask on La Grande Odalisque, an idealized nude similar to the Rokeby Venus slashed by Richardson, but by using an identifiable image, or something that is "beautiful and valued," both were able to.

Thanks to Katy Hessel at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.