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This is about oil sponsorship, not corporate sponsorship, of the arts
At the end of September, the merry band of Bard-based interventionists, the Reclaim Shakespeare Company struck again in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Shortly before the BP-sponsored performance of Twelfth Night was due to begin, three actors took to the stage to perform a short piece addressing the issue of the controversial sponsorship relationship, including lines such as: Alas,…
9 Oct 2012 admin -
Kate Tempest, Matthew Herbert & BP Saturdays at Tate
On Saturday, September 22nd, an exciting collaborative installation took place at Tate Britain, involving the innovative pioneers of immersive performance, Punchdrunk. However at least two of the artists who were taking part in the didn’t seem to be aware and comfortable with the fact that the event had the top line BP sponsorship attached to…
8 Oct 2012 admin -
Shell Classic International: A musical mask and a social licence
A guest post from musician Chris Garrard. Tonight, the new season of the Shell Classic International concert series will open at the Southbank. The first piece of this first concert is Benajmin Britten’s ‘plea for peace’, the Sinfonia da Requiem. The unpleasant irony is that Shell, the sponsor of these concerts, have now spent in…
3 Oct 2012 admin -
Tate’s (near) deafening silence on #AskACurator day
Wednesday 19th September was Ask a Curator day, with museums and galleries all over the world taking part, including Tate. The overwhelming majority of questions put to Tate curators were about it’s controversial sponsorship with relationship with BP, but Tate curators made only a single response. To be fair, it’s not the curators that are…
19 Sep 2012 admin -
‘Out damn logo!’ A week of oil-sponsorship controversy in the theatre world
Phew! There’s been so much going on this last week in terms of various interventions and speaking out on the controversial subject of BP sponsorship that at times it’s been hard to keep up. Here’s handy timeline to help keep people in the loop. Things had already been simmering away following renowned actor Mark Rylance…
2 Jul 2012 admin -
Blowing the whistle on Sunderland AFC’s oil sponsorship deal
At Platform we’ve been very focused on looking at how oil companies use cultural institutions to plaster over their controversial operations, but just yesterday a UK-based oil company moved into the sports sector. The Guardian reported that Premier League Sunderland AFC had secured “pioneering African sponsorship” with Invest in Africa. The article makes Invest In…
26 Jun 2012 admin -
Mark Rylance, BP & the Olympics
It was heartening to hear Mark Rylance on the Today Programme this morning talking about his involvement in the Olympics opening ceremony and his discomfort about BP (and McDonalds) sponsorship. The award-winning actor, theatre director and playwright said that he’d been asked to take part, and the interviewer suggested he could have said no, to…
20 Jun 2012 admin -
Take the money and run? New piece by Platform on arts and corporate sponsorship in Arts Professional.
Read the piece here. We welcome any comments. Arts Professional is a leading national bi-weekly news and analysis magazine for arts managers, fundraisers, and policy-makers. AP invited Platform to write this after reading the Study Room Guide of the same name which Live Art Development Agency commissioned from Platform earlier this year.
11 Jun 2012 jane -
Tate Modern removes oil from its new galleries
What were “The Oil Tanks” at Tate Modern have now been rebranded as “The Tanks” within recent Tate press communications it has been noted by campaign group Platform [1]. It appears that the forthcoming launch of its new space has prompted Tate to remove the word ‘oil’ from the name of its new galleries that are now referred to…
17 May 2012 admin
