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Five members of the art activist group Culture Beyond Oil poured non-toxic black oil around the British Museum’s world famous Easter Island sculpture, in protest at BP’s sponsorship of the museum.
BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill has taken center stage internationally, and the disaster has brought to the fore questions about the connection between cultural organizations and their sponsors. The Tate celebrated 20 years of BP sponsorship [PDF] last week, as one of many London-based institutions accepting money from big oil. The artist/activist group Liberate Tate intervened, staging an oil spill inside the party and outside, at the gallery’s entrance, as documented in the video below.
Liberate Tate made headlines, and was joined by many outspoken allies in an open letter published in the Guardian condemning BP’s sponsorship of the Tate. Among the signatories are many recognizable names, including art world luminaries, well-known artists/activists we’ve covered, or friends of Groundswell.
The organizers show no sign of slowing. We’ll continue to follow the action; regular updates are also available from Liberate Tate’s Twitter account.
Adam Friedman’s “No Vestige of a Beginning, No Prospect of and End” (2010)
Big Shots | Take a look at the rich, white men at the top rung of the NYC cultural ladder. [NYTimes]
DIY WPA | The Work Projects Administration is experiencing a revival, at the hands of public artists and community organizers. [WPA]
Reason to Interfere | Invitations are being solicited for work combining art, politics, and protest, for Interference 2010. [Artsadmin]
Preference & Prejudice | Tackle the issue of bias where art and politics meet. [The Arts Politic]
Cornelia Hesse-Honegger paints morphologically disturbed insects, their malformation caused by human-made radiation.
Razzle Dazzle | An NYU student is developing makeup techniques that “could render very expensive facial recognition technology utterly useless.” [Animal]
Dirty Money | Mel Chin’s Fundred Project, an arts-driven advocacy effort to make safe the lead-contaminated soil in US cities, is coming to Boston’s ICA on April 9th. [Fundred]
From the Ashes, Literally | Can you create an artwork from industrial spoil? Falkirk Council invites submissions for socially engaged works. [Arts & Ecology]
The Urbano Project and Artists in Context lend a hand to Mel Chin’s collaborative art piece, Fundred, this weekend, as the project celebrates its Boston kick-off. Fundred is an advocacy strategy to garner $300m in federal funding for lead decontamination efforts in New Orleans. Participants draw interpretations of U.S. $100 bills, and after 3,000,000 have been collected, they will be delivered to Congress in a vegetable oil-powered armored car, along with the request that the fake bills be exchanged for real funds.
A hand-drwan Fundred from Fort Wayne, IN
The city of Boston has pledged to raise fifteen thousand Fundreds. Participants needn’t wait for the Fundreds to come to town, as an online template will help you get involved now.
Mel Chin explains the project in his own words in the video below, from Art21.
