How to take the oil out of art
The morality of corporate sponsorship
Over an 8 year period from 2004, the photographer Sabastiao Salgado travelled to the most unspoiled areas of the world, capturing magnificent images of landscapes, wildlife and traditional and ancient human communities. His aim was to inspire action to protect these last, pristine places from destruction by human activity.
The resulting ‘Genesis’ exhibition was hosted last summer by the Natural History Museum in London. It was absorbing and wonderful — spanning continents, species, topographies and climates and rendering incredible richness in black and white photography. But at the very end of the display a small panel of text gave some visitors an uncomfortable shock — it identified the commercial sponsor of Genesis as Vale.
Vale is one of the largest mining conglomerates in the world. It was awarded the Public Eye Award in 2012 as the world’s worst corporation for its long track record of environmental and human rights violations. So those inspiring images of ‘pristine’ environments are funded by a company that destroys vast areas of this unique planet in search of profit.
For centuries, rulers and the wealthy used the power of arts patronage to further their political ambitions. Slave merchants, for example, invested their money into philanthropy and culture to give themselves respectability. It appears to be happening all over again now as artists and arts institutions replace declining public funding with commercial sources of support. At an Institute of Contemporary Arts event in London in 2010 called ‘Public Art, Private Money’, Christopher Frayling (former Chair of Arts Council England) said ‘The first person you go to [for sponsorship] is someone with an image problem’. Unfortunately the public art sector has taken this advice to heart. The innovative activism by organisations such as Platform London, Art Not Oil and Liberate Tate, has highlighted the extent to which art is in bed with oil. The fossil fuel corporations BP and Shell between them sponsor many of the UK’s greatest arts institutions, among them the Tate’s Britain and Modern, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall.
In an inspiring presentation last year to the Royal College of Art on art, politics and climate change, John Ashton, former special representative for climate change at the UK foreign office urged the art community not to be co-opted by governments or corporations. He said ‘Art cannot enter the edifice of power, its proper place is tunnelling under the foundations of that edifice’. He pointed out that ‘Power wants art on its side, not the other side’. So why do artists and the leaders of these high profile institutions choose to take money from oil, gas, mining and other undeniably environmentally destructive industries and, in doing so, give these corporations cultural cover? It is particularly puzzling in the case of The Tate which has a vision for 2015 that includes ‘to demonstrate leadership in response to climate change’, and yet it continues to take money from BP, one of the biggest carbon emitting corporations in the world.
Nicolas Serota’s response when challenged on the contradiction between his organisation’s vision and the BP relationship claimed ‘we are committed to addressing issues posed by climate change. Tate has made some big strides in terms of carbon reduction’. These are largely in the form of initiatives such as reducing energy use in galleries and transport of artworks. It seems, therefore, that he views climate change as a technical issue, rather than a moral one. Researchers, such as psychologists Ezra Markowitz and Azim Shariff, have found that people often have weak moral intuitions about climate change perhaps because it is a complex issue; we are all implicated as fossil fuel end users; our individual contributions towards carbon emissions are unintentional; and the social impact of climate change is mostly abstract (such as changing weather systems). Contrast this with cigarette smoking where the health consequences are clear, simple and direct — and no wonder very few art institutions accept funding from the tobacco industry.
The Directors of these institutions might also simply lack adequate knowledge of the environmental consequences of climate change, and specifically their sponsors activities, and are afraid to show their ignorance by asking questions. After all, leaders often feel unable to admit what they don’t know.
Either way, individuals with influence either personally or through the institutions they manage, could benefit from a really good look at what leadership in sustainability entails, to challenge themselves and their peers so that they can make ethical decisions with confidence. Courses, such as those led by Jem Bendell, Director of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Cumbria could really help.
