BP PORTRAIT AWARD TARGETED AGAIN BY ANTI-OIL ACTIVISTS, 7PM 21-6-04, NPG

The Madingley shuffler | 21.06.2004 07:44 | Anti-racism | London

‘NOT THE NPG’ ALTERNATIVE EXHIBITION ALSO EXTENDED

London Rising Tide and friends will be on hand to question guests arriving at the National Portrait Gallery 21.6.04 for the announcement of the winner of this year’s BP National Portrait Award. All are welcome. Bring a portrait on a placard, or similar, or a slogan, or just yourself.

London Rising Tide Press Release

london@risingtide.org.uk
Contact LRT on 07708 794665

The question? ‘According to a recent Pentagon report, global warming now presents a greater threat to human life than global terrorism – so why are we still going to art galleries sponsored by oil companies?’

This question will be posed in a visually and aurally arresting manner, assisted by portraits revealing the true corrupted face of BP & Big Oil .

Also, the squatted gallery at 50 Chalk Farm Road NW1 is now likely to be open until Saturday 26th June. This space is packed to the rafters with oil industry-exposing artworks, some gathered from hither and thither, and some painted onsite.

Background:
London Rising Tide, a grassroots group taking direct action against the root causes of climate change, is joining forces with artists to express anger over the role of BP in intensifying global climate change and human rights abuses around the world. During the past two years, as part of its campaign against BP’s hugely controversial Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, LRT has disrupted BP AGMs, presentations by both BP's boss, Lord Browne, and its Chairman, brought Caspian carve-up conferences to a standstill and targeted BP-sponsored locations such as Tate Britain, Natural History Museum and the Royal Opera House.

Martin Doyle (a participating artist) stated ‘as an artist I’m appalled by BP’s sponsorship of the arts, which gives the impression that the art world condones the company’s activities around the world’. LRT activists point out that in previous years the NPA was sponsored by John Player, a tobacco company, and it appears oil companies have followed suit. Sarah Newby (LRT) suggests ‘it’s time to meet the increased corporate hijack of the arts with defiant creativity, time to kick the corporations out of our galleries, museums and theatres!’

Visit the ‘not the NPG’ exhibition space at 50 Chalk Farm Road NW1, (Chalk Farm tube)
If you would like to register your interest in covering the story, contact LRT at

london@risingtide.org.uk or on 07708 794665

More information on LRT and the Exhibition of Resistance can be found at

http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/ and

http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/portrait/index.htm
See also www.risingtide.org.uk and www.baku.org.uk

The 1st Annual Exhibition of Resistance to Big Oil and the Corporate Hijacking of ‘the Arts’ continues…
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The Madingley shuffler

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Who's gong to pay for it, then?

21.06.2004 12:05

It's all very well trying to chuck BP out of the arts, but with the government
pumping the cash into Iraq and the military with more frenzy than ever, where's the money
for the arts going to come from if not from SleazyCorp?

Just a thought - love what you're up to by the way...

Harpsi Hen

Harpsichord Henry

We always pay in the end

21.06.2004 16:59

RE: the previous post - we (artists and consumers) end up paying, as our culture is ever more co-opted and therefore artistically bankrupted by big-business.

You may say that it has always been ever thus, but really - there's so much shit happening in the REAL world, it's about time artists and musicians put their talent where their checkbook lives and start expressing the actual world and not the phantasy one big business sells us all down the river with.

Paul Scott
mail e-mail: paul.scott@pimusic.org
Homepage: http://www.pimusic.org

re Who's going to pay

22.06.2004 15:25

Re whos going to pay for the 'arts'.

The art industry is already extremely corrupt and has been for a long time e.g. Paris dealer system, nepotistic funding opportunities, arts council grants and 'jobs for the boys(sic)' or the media and academic circus.

The arts should not be about spectacle or cheap advertising for multinationals.
The overpaid Britart boys and girls prove that talent isn't always necessary and that connections or funding by business bods is more important - or a large chequebook ( and studio )to gain entry to this fucked-up clique.

e.g Tracey 'talentless' Emin "Now one has to be a business person and not just an artist". She had to be pushed by the Thatcherite ad agency business twat Charles Saatchie.

D.I.Y. & Destroy Capitalism.

Vanessa Bell's Bottom