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Strip away the carapace – the Ice Age, BP, and the British Museum
Blog post -
Sep 15, 2016
It pushes me quickly to tears. I’m kneeling on the cold stone floor of the Great Court, legs tucked beneath me, one foot crossed under the other. I’m listening to a rendition of A Requiem to Sinking Cities – an agit-performance in the heart of the British Museum. Silent figures hold up two banners, ‘#DropBP’...
Open letter: BP can’t buy our silence
Blog post -
Aug 2, 2016
Today’s Times has published an open letter from Mark Rylance, Naomi Klein, Nnimmo Bassey, Matthew Herbert, and 215 artists, actors, arts managers, musicians, frontline activists, campaigners, and scientists, arguing: We cannot afford another five years of BP-branded culture. Last Thursday BP announced the renewal of its flagship sponsorship programme. Its partners, this time: British Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Royal...
Statement: protest will escalate with BP’s newly announced sponsorship deals
Press release -
Jul 28, 2016
Contact: Anna Galkina / 07942044472 / [email protected] Today BP announced new headline sponsorship agreements with the British Museum, Royal Opera House, National Portrait Gallery and Royal Shakespeare Company, providing the institutions with an average of only £375,000 a year each. This is less than the price of the average 2 bedroom flat in London, and 25% less...
We’ve kicked BP out of Tate – but the work’s not done yet
Blog post -
Mar 21, 2016
Tate’s BP sponsorship is ending. Last Saturday Liberate Tate released a spectacular cloud of confetti through the huge space of Tate’s Turbine Hall to celebrate. In kicking BP out of Tate, the movement for fossil free culture has achieved something that appeared impossible. This post is based on a slideshow we projected inside the Turbine...
Share price of BP falling – will Shell take over BP?
Blog post -
Jan 12, 2015
As the London Stock Exchange opened at 09.00 on Tuesday, 16th December, BP’s shareprice was down to 365 pence. It was the bottom of a long slide from 448 pence on the 21st November and investors in the company looked concerned that BP was failing badly. Shares in BP have lost 25% of their value...
2014: ten moments of a culture beyond oil
Blog post -
Dec 18, 2014
What will we remember about the oil industry in 2014? Aside from falling oil prices and ongoing debates about fracking (did you know New York state just banned it?), there are more and more signs this year that ‘social licence’ is becoming the industry’s largest challenge (like this Canadian industry expert points out). Where would oil companies be without...
Picture This – artist Raoul Martinez on why oil sponsorship must end
Blog post -
Jul 3, 2014
Over the past week we’ve published chapter by chapter the text from our new report ‘Picture This’ against BP’s sponsorship of the National Portrait Gallery’s Portrait Award. Below is the final chapter, ‘Picturing the Future’, brilliantly and calmly reasoned by artist Raoul Martinez. Raoul has been 3-times shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award and has...
‘Picture This’ report extract – BP’s ongoing Gulf Coast disaster & ‘artful dodging’
Blog post -
Jul 1, 2014
Last week we published a critical new report ‘Picture This – A Portrait of 25 years of BP Sponsorship‘, timed with the opening of the National Portrait Gallery London’s new ‘BP Portrait Award’ exhibition. In a series of blogs, we are featuring extracts from the report. Today’s blog shares devastating testimony and analysis from two...
Art Not Oil’s week of action on NPG’s ‘BP Portrait Award’
Blog post -
Jun 30, 2014
Have a look at the ‘Storify’ to see some of the actions, reactions and impacts that happened around the National Portrait Gallery’s opening of this year’s BP Portrait Award. The main events were… On Saturday – ‘Portraits in Oil‘ performance-intervention at the NPG by Art Not Oil Coalition On Wednesday (day of the exhibition’s press...
‘Picture This’ extract – 25 years of BP Sponsorship, year by year
Blog post -
Jun 27, 2014
Today we focus on the section of our report that outlined BP’s track record 1989 – 2014, the period of BP’s sponsorship of the National Portrait Gallery’s Portrait Award. Here’s the whole report. We have pulled out 25 examples of BP’s worst environmental and human rights disasters and also evidence of dodgy and backroom deals...
New report ‘Picture This’ on the BP Portrait Award – extract on National Portrait Gallery
Blog post -
Jun 25, 2014
Our new report Picture This – A Portrait of 25 years of BP sponsorship is in 5 parts. Each part addresses a different aspect of the issue, and should cause deep concern in any institution’s corporate sponsorship department that wants to operate ethically. Even though its publication is triggered by the 2014 BP Portrait Award...
Picture This – A Portrait of 25 Years of BP Sponsorship
Publication -
Jun 24, 2014
Download the report, or browse online below. How bad does a company have to be before an arts organisation refuses to be associated with it or take its money? How much outcry does a sponsor’s primary business have to provoke before a line is drawn? What kind of critique should send alarm signals up and...
