After years of legal wrangling, the Tate museums group has finally disclosed the details of its sponsorship agreement with oil company BP. The information includes figures from the years 1990–2006, over which time BP gave the institution between £150,000 and £330,000 (~$225,800–497,550) annually, adding up to a total £3.8 million (~$5.7 million). The numbers, which were released today by the arts and activism organization Platform London, are much lower than some observers expected.
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LONDON — It’s 10am on the last Saturday of January, and Tate Britain is predictably sleepy. The museum has just opened its doors for the day, and a modest coterie of visitors treads lightly to preserve the morning hush.
But that tranquility won’t last long. Eight artist-activists enter the members-only café overlooking the museum’s pristine rotunda. Gaining entry to the café is no covert op; the activists are Tate members. They position themselves in the café’s outward-facing niches, encircling the rotunda. Clad in black, the unofficial uniform of the performance artist, they pull on sheer black veils. Each dissident reaches into a brown paper bag and, perhaps taking a page from Guggenheim protesters last year, proceeds to theatrically toss fake money into the gallery below — specifically, the BP Displays portion of the BP Walk Through British Art.
VERY BIG NEWS: Energy giant BP will cease it’s controversial @tate sponsorship in 2017! Full story can be found here.
If you’re an artist who’s complained about the oil industry and the way fossil fuel extraction is damaging the environment, you now have a chance to put your money where your mouth is.
Hundreds of Cultural Workers and Institutions Pledge to Refuse Fossil Fuel Money
Last night, The Illuminator was in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District to project mayday messages on the facade of the soon-to-be-opened Whitney Museum, while a group of two dozen protesters supported by 23 sponsoring organizations, launched a guerrilla inauguration for the “fracked gas line museum.”
Art Protest Groups Join Forces for Guerrilla Ribbon-cutting at New Whitney Museum
One of the most impressive features of Tuesday night’s Whitney Museum protest was the coalition of 23 organizations that collaborated on the guerrilla inauguration. From arts activists to Occupy-affiliated groups and environmental advocates, the range of organizations involved was impressive. Each had its own motivations for taking part. One man who spoke up during the “Public Comment” part of the evening’s program said he wanted artists to use this opportunity to highlight the pipeline’s presence and incorporate environmental themes into their work.
