Earlier related post on this site

From PLATFORM's Unravelling the Carbon Web:

Unprecedented coalition from the arts condemns BP-sponsorship of the Tate
171 figures from the arts sign letter on the day Tate celebrates 20 years of BP funding

[Editor's note: Peter Fend of Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation, and a longtime post.thing.net contributor, is signatory 19.]

Sunday, June 27, 2010. A letter today was published in the Guardian today signed by 171 figures from the art world condemning BP’s sponsorship of cultural institutions in the UK. The letter has been published on the day that Tate Britain is hosting a party to celebrate 20 years of BP’s sponsorship. [1] A group of artists under the banner of ‘The Good Crude Britannia’ are planning on protesting outside the event, and will be handing out the “Licence to Spill’ briefing to people attending the party.[2]

Arts/activist organisation Platform [3] has gathered 171 signatories from the international arts community, for a letter that says:

“As crude oil continues to devastate coastlines and communities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP executives will be enjoying a cocktail reception with curators and artists in the Tate Britain. These relationships enable big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high profile cultural associations.”[4]

A related posting on this site.

from The Guardian:

The summer season of events at Britain's most prestigious galleries and museums will be picketed by artists and green groups intent on portraying BP's arts sponsorship as a toxic brand.

Protests are planned next Monday by an eco-alliance styling itself "Good Crude Britannia" at Tate Britain's celebration of its 20-year association with the international oil conglomerate.

Climate change activists, artists and musicians opposed to the fossil fuel industry are determined to highlight BP's link to the arts in the context of the company's international embarrassment over the continuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Altermodern – Tate Triennial
DERIVING KNOWLEDGE

Gasp! Postmodernism is dead?
Say what?? I didn’t get the memo.

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset at Victoria Miro Gallery, London “TOO LATE” exhibition.

A little too late

Only over 18s allowed in says the silver sign on the door. I was hoping that no-one was going to ask for some ID once I entered because I had left my passport at home, and have no alternative form of official ID that proves my age and indeed, who I am. I wasn’t exactly aware of what I was going to be seeing at this exhibition. I knew that it was supposedly a gallery.

The accumulation of culture
Culture – a build up of.
In Dialogue.
The Transmission-ability of culture.
Plateau Platformo.

The “cultural stealth” of our own existence has started to take its toll upon us. In a culture where the idea of transmission-ability//progress is given up in the name of Post Modernity, the disillusion and disenchantment
that is accredited by de-motivated academics, leaves us – both as artist practitioners and spectators – feeling somewhat alienated.

Sheffield's famous Tinsley cooling towers will be demolished over the August Bank Holiday weekend, energy giant 'E.On' has announced, despite thousands of people had signed petitions to save the towers, which can be seen by motorists who use the M1.
The general publics efforts were so determined that they even filed for the two iconic concreate cooling towers to be classed as a piece of public art. This really could have worked, as they are the Sheffield equivilent to the Newcastle Angel of the North. It doesn't appear that there's much more that we can do. Eon are adamant that the towers have to come down, and have been unwilling to consider anything else all along. Nothing that we have done has changed that, not even the TV program on channel 4 or the radio interview on BBC Radio 2. The council haven't got the ambition or vision to see that these towers could be icons, that they could attract millions of people. Unless there's some sort of divine intervention, then, it looks like the cooling towers will disappear.

A debate about the future of art education is raging on the pages of Art Monthly. In October readers will have the opportunity to come along and put their questions to our panel of educational professionals and policy makers. The panel will debate the future of art education - is further privatisation, corporatisation and instrumentalism inevitable or are there alternatives?