Bp

THE OIL SHIP BY CONRAD ATKINSON

img_0748Signed artist’s print by Conrad Atkinson; buy yours now and support Liberate Tate

Artist Conrad Atkinson has produced a limited edition print to support the activities of Liberate Tate. The new A1 sized work For BP  is now available to buy in a limited edition of 75. All the funds raised from the sale of this print will support the work of Liberate Tate. As a group concerned with issues around ethical funding choices, it is important that we raise our own funds responsibly. Liberate Tate members are dedicated to continuing our voluntary work to free art from oil, and all funds raised from the sale of these prints will go directly to support the material costs of our performances.

Title of work: The Oil Ship | Date: 2013|Dimensions: 59 x 84cm | Edition: 75

Conrad Atkinson has 10 works held in Tate’s collection. A well known trouble-maker and political artist, he even has two works held on display atDowning Street. His work often troubles power and makes explicit corporate and government hypocrisy. Conrad previously contributed to our publication ‘Not if but when: Culture Beyond Oil’.  Check out his stunning new work The Oil Ship which presents a new twist on the Tate-BP deal.

 Please support our work, and bag yourself a beauty of an artwork at the same time! And please share this page with friends and networks to get a copy of this limited edition print.

INFORMATION ON HOW TO PURCHASE HERE

Please share this page and tweet @LiberateTate to link up with us on Twitter, and ‘Like’ ‘End oil sponsorship of the arts’ on Facebook.

MAKE8ELIEVE – online art magazine issue dedicated to oil

305092_489458227750074_33562497_nAs an organisation that combines arts, activism and research with a pretty hefty focus on the damage caused by UK oil companies, we were super-excited to have a flick through the third issue of an online arts magazineMAKE8ELIEVE, that aims to “build international connections by publishing creative interpretations of one topic per issue.”

It’s a 254 page, full colour labour of love, with submissions from many different artists with a dizzying variety of practices. Campaigners on oil issues would do well to have a browse and draw inspiration from the creativity of the contributions rather than falling back on what can become quite a tired pallet of images and associations that evoke the impacts of the global oil industry.

It’s particularly great to see Liberate Tate‘s dramatic participatory and unsolicited The Gift that took place in Tate Modern last July, and involved the installation of a 16 metre wind turbine blade as a reaction to Tate’s ongoing and increasingly controversial sponsorship relationship with BP. You can browse this stunning publication below (Liberate Tate can be seen on pages 151-161), or visit the MAKE8ELIEVE site for more info on the artists.

The Oil Road reviewed

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

PLATFORM have been at the heart of a critique of corporations and carbon for more than twenty years.  They have entered into long term partnerships with environmental ngos, appeared at Glastonbury, commissioned and created artworks, as well as produced books and films.

They have also founded a business that delivers micro renewable solutions for businesses and homes in London.

Their latest book, following on from the hugely important The Next Gulf, is The Oil Road, reviewed recently in the Guardian.  The Next Gulf focused on Shell’s involvement in Nigeria.  The Oil Road is focused on travels that Mika Minio Paluello in particular made along BP’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean.  Exploring oil from experience on the ground is always more revealing.  These books are always well researched, historically informed, thoroughly post-colonial and fascinating.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.
It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

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Liberate Tate action

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

A group of artists and activists donate a symbol of alternative energy to the BP sponsored Tate Modern

The Turbine Hall – image from Liberate Tate blog – image by Ian Buswell

Watch the Vice News video.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge ResearchGray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Social license to operate

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

BP is definitely splashing around the cultural sponsorship – there has been press coverage of the £10 million to cultural majors

in London, and now they are also sponsoring the Cultural Olympiad.

Art Not Oil want artworks for an online exhibition.  Send them before the end of February.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Culture Beyond Oil publication launch

Liberate Tate, Art Not Oil and Platform warmly invite you to a get together to end oil sponsorship of the arts. Featuring a performance from singer-comedian Mae Martin, contributing artist to the upcoming Tate à Tate audio tour, the evening will be the first opportunity to purchase the freshly stamped limited edition copies of Not if but when: Culture Beyond Oil.

Event details:

Tuesday 29th November

Free Word Centre 60 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3GA

10.30am – 6.30pm Oil daub performance by Ruppe Koselleck

6.30pm – 9.00pm Culture Beyond Oil Launch Event (refreshments provided)

Not if but when: Culture Beyond Oil is a publication that sets out to discuss oil sponsorship of the arts. The single issue, limited edition publication features artworks in dialogue with the BP Gulf of Mexico catastrophe and articles that set out the compelling arguments for an end to BP and Shell’s murky involvement with many of the nation’s favourite cultural institutions.

This is an open event – feel free to invite your friends and colleagues.

Featured artwork: Anthony Burrill, 'Oil & Water Do Not Mix', 2010. Phot credit: Happiness Brussels

The launch event will bring together many of the growing number of artists, activists, cultural workers and gallery-goers who have built the ideas, drive and passion that are embedded in the publication itself. The launch will be an opportunity to celebrate our collective visions and strategies for ending oil sponsorship of the arts.

During the day on Monday the 28th November, each copy of this full colour 1000 limited edition will be numbered and daubed with oil from Gulf of Mexico beaches by featured artist Ruppe Koselleck, as part of his ongoing Takeover BP project, in which Koselleck sells artworks to buy shares with the aim of ultimately taking over BP.

People are warmly invited to come and witness the process during the day, have a chat with people present from Liberate Tate, Platform and Art Not Oil, or browse some of the literature relating to BP and Shell’s global activities.

The Free Word Centre is next to the Betsy Trotwood pub. The nearest tube station is Farringdon (Circle, District and Metropolitan Lines) a 5 minute walk away. Buses that stop near Free Word are 63 on Farringdon Road, 19 and 38 on Rosebery Avenue and 55 and 243 on Clerkenwell Road. See map.

Liberate Tate is an art collective exploring the role of creative intervention in social change dedicated to taking creative disobedience against Tate until it drops its oil company funding. Contact: liberatetate@gmail.com@LiberateTate.

Platform is an arts and research organisation bringing together environmentalists, artists, human rights campaigners, educationalists and community activists to create innovative projects driven by the need for social and environmental justice. Contact: info@platformlondon.org@PlatformLondon.

Art Not Oil encourages artists – and would-be artists – to create work that explores the damage that companies like BP and Shell are doing to the planet, and the role art can play in counteracting that damage. Contactinfo@artnotoil.org.uk.

Banksy’s Coin-Operated, Politically Charged Plaything Mocks BP | Inhabitat

This colorful kiddie ride comes courtesy of gleeful art prankster Banksy, an artist well known for his graffiti and politically charged installations. In his most recent creation, the artist transformed a coin-operated ride into a searing statement against the BP oil spill.

from Banksy’s Coin-Operated, Politically Charged Plaything Mocks BP | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.

BP arts sponsorship: can Tate afford it? | John Sauven, Greenpeace UK | Culture | guardian.co.uk

More from the Guardian on the relationship of BP to the Tate Modern…

Tate director Nicholas Serota needs to consider this risk carefully. Does his institution want to be associated with one of the world’s biggest single sources of pollution? One that has actively lobbied to undermine clean energy, pouring huge sums into industry groups that campaign to lower carbon taxes and weaken climate legislation? BP’s alternative energy business is a plaything of former boss Lord Browne that has been consigned to the corporate rubbish tip. For these reasons and others, BP is certain to remain the focus of environmental resistance and public anger for years to come. Similarly, those who choose to lend the company an air of acceptability by receiving corporate sponsorship will continue to be seen as legitimate targets for protest around the world. This movement is still in its infancy, but will only gather in strength.

BP arts sponsorship: can Tate afford it? | John Sauven, Greenpeace UK | Culture | guardian.co.uk.

A Silver Sheen to . . . well, you know.

Yes. So.

Garbage didn’t work. Natural fibers were rejected. Booming school has apparently been a failure. In the meantime, an ever-increasing parade of oil-soaked birds and the collapse of local industries.
What else can we do but laugh?

If there is a silver lining or sheen or gloss or whatever to the gulf spill, it’s that the insanely large catastrophe has spawned some of the best ecological humor in recent years.

Don’t EVEN try to take that the wrong way.

Pro comedy players like UCB Theater, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report have been defending ecosystems and decrying BP with their sharp and witty tools of trade. Most memorably, The Onion suggests a Massive Flow of Bullshit from BP Headquarters will drown us all.

It’s times like these that laughter literally heals. Which is not to say: it scrubs oily birds. Rather: it keeps ecological massacres such as these from driving you insane.

Go to the Green Museum

BP Keeps Arts Sponsorship as Pressure Grows for Spill Damages – Bloomberg.com

June 18 Bloomberg — BP Plc, which has shed 45 percent of its market value after causing the U.S.’s worst-ever oil spill, said it will keep sponsoring the British Museum, the Royal Opera House, Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

“These are longstanding partnerships that we have with major cultural institutions in the U.K.,” BP spokesman David Nicholas said in a telephone interview yesterday. “They’re completely unchanged, as far as I’m concerned.”

BP Keeps Arts Sponsorship as Pressure Grows for Spill Damages – Bloomberg.com.