What we're doing right
License to spill
29th June 2010
"This relationship enables big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high-profile cultural associations."
“Art exists to change the status quo. Sometimes you have to take a moral standpoint to provide that space for questions to be raised, even though others argue that you shouldn’t.” ~ Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate, February 2010
Even in light of this statement, the fact that British Petroleum is one of the largest private donors to the Tate art galleries is not surprising. BP and Shell are in fact two of the biggest suporters of museums and other cultural institutions in the UK, and have been so for twenty years.
What is surprising is that the Tate would make the decision to “celebrate” this sponsorship with a glittery cocktail gala at the very same moment that Deepwater Horizon continues to create the worst environmental disaster in living memory. Audacious is one way to describe it; unwise might be another.
The occasion, and the uncharacteristically sunny London evening, made for the perfect opportunity for Art Not Oil to create a glittery, feathery, oily mess to illustrate the institution’s ongoing sponsorship by the nation’s most notorious polluter.
As a coalition of artists signing an open letter to the gallery put it: “This relationship enables big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high-profile cultural associations.”