The arts, oil and sponsorship

Robert Newman's article attacking arts sponsorship in general, and BP's recent announcement to give ?10m to four national arts institutions in particular (Why are Britain's great art houses in bed with Big Oil?, 21 December), raises important points. I must declare an interest ? Arts & Business has been supported by BP for over 30 years and is proud of the partnership. Our founding chairman, Arnold Goodman, a exemplary former chair of the Arts Council, declared to me over 25 years ago that "wherever the money comes from ? it can be rolled by the mafia ? if it goes to the arts it becomes good money".

Not that I believe BP's is bad money, far from it. They are exemplary citizens, they acknowledge their mistakes and pay their taxes. Indeed they pay billions of pounds to the UK government and into all of our pensions. If Newman does not want corporate money, he should advocate that no arts body should accept public money. Where does state cash come from? The answer is from thousands of corporations and employees who work for these companies. Newman talks of the arts being damaged by BP and other sponsors. Really? Where is his evidence? More than ?600m goes to the arts from the private sector each year. The arts would be damaged substantially without it.

Business has been supporting the arts for centuries. Newman should visit the current exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence on art and banking in Renaissance Florence, which shows how banking profits helped fuel some of the greatest art of all time. Today BP and other companies are doing likewise. Let's celebrate them, not bash them.
Colin Tweedy
Chief executive, Arts & Business

? Robert Newman is spot-on. Just as it was wrong of the LSE to take money from Gaddafi's son, so it is wrong of the Tate, British Museum, National Portrait Gallery and other art institutions to take money from an unaccountable corporation that was "Libya's corporate partner". Nicholas Serota, Neil MacGregor, Sandy Nairne and the other cultural panjandrums can squawk all they like, but taking sponsorship money from BP is bad for the arts and bad for democracy, and it breaches any code of ethics worthy of the name.

How can our most revered, publicly funded arts establishments still allow themselves to be supported by an oil company with a terrible legacy of damage to the environment, communities and so many people? The cynical atrocities of oil corporations in pursuit of wealth and power are being legitimised by the arts establishment. It sullies the arts and undermines the institutions of art.

At a time of economic restraint there are legitimate debates to be had about replacement funding for the arts, but crimes against the environment are crimes against humanity, and oil money is an expedient too far. As the world, and indeed Tate, have learned to flourish without support from slavery, tobacco and alcohol, we and they must learn to emerge from the culture of fossil fuels. It is time to halt the tyranny of oil patronage and cleanse the oil stains from art.
Nick Reeves
Executive director, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental?Management

? It seems unreasonable of Rob Newman, to say the least, to attack the Tate and the British Museum, among others, for accepting sponsorship from big oil companies. Maybe he lives in a yurt and goes everywhere by bicycle, but the vast majority of the British population use the products of Big Oil every day. BP's best advertising is its petrol stations, not the National Portrait Gallery. Calling our great museums "cathedrals of democracy" that should be unsullied by contact with the grubby world of commerce is nonsensical; they exist to display art and artefacts, not to promote the idea of eco-friendly democracy that appeals to Newman.
Simon Everett
Norwich

? The loss of this sculpture will be greeted with anger (Raiders escape with Hepworth artwork, 21 December). But isn't it just another example of market forces that sustain our economy? A large piece of metal doing nothing; an enterprising team who can turn it into cash? There is something missing ? could it be "losing our soul?"
Alan Harding
Coulsdon, Surrey

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/dec/25/the-arts-oil-and-sponsorship

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