I've cut and pasted a letter from Rebecca Beinart to the Tate Liverpool
regarding the call out to artists to work with Rolls Royce. She is happy for
me to circulate it to lists. If any of you do write to the Tate about this
matter please let me know. Also I'd be interested to hear of any response.
>From responses I have received I know this is an issue a lot of artists
feel
strongly about. We need to communicate this to the Tate. Ange
The Director
Tate Liverpool
Albert Dock
Liverpool
L3 4BB
20th December 2003
Re: Sponsorship by Rolls Royce
Dear Director,
As an East-Midlands based artist, I recently received an e-mail about "an
exciting opportunity for an artist to work in collaboration with Tate
Liverpool and Rolls Royce in Derby…"
I was shocked to learn that Tate Liverpool are asking artists to work "in
collaboration with" Rolls Royce. Is the Tate Liverpool unaware that Rolls
Royce is boycotted by many people, due to its status as the second biggest
defence company in the UK? Rolls Royce themselves boast of their position as
"number two military aero-engine manufacturer, powering approximately 25% of
the world's military fleet". (www.rolls-royce.com/defence)
I understand that contemporary artists, and institutions such as the Tate,
rely on corporate sponsorship. However, there must surely be a degree of
ethical choice in deciding which companies to work with. By sponsoring the
arts, companies like Rolls Royce are getting very good PR. The artists
involved would, in turn, be promoting a company that makes a huge profit
from the arms trade, and from selling military aeroplane parts to human
rights abusing regimes. Rolls Royce has provided gas turbine aero-engine
facilities to 100 armed forces, including human rights abusing regimes such
as China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Rolls Royce provided engines to oil companies operating in Sudan, who built
a pipeline that was responsible for displacing tens of thousands of local
people. This process involved many atrocities against civilians, often
resulting in death. ('Sudan: Oil Firms Accused of Fuelling Mass Displacement
and Killing', by Victoria Brittain and Terry Macalister, The Guardian March
15, 2001)
Rolls Royce recently won a contract to continue the maintenance and
refurbishment of the Royal Navy nuclear submarine fleet. This contract,
worth up to
Rolls Royce funding UK arts
-
Type: discussion
Comments
Don't most NET ARTIST realize that the internet was created, and developed by the US Defense Dept. and the university system that was feeding them the brains to make it happen?
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!
I believe that the deal with the devil has been signed by all who appear on the grid.
not that saying no to the dough isn't the right and honorable thing to do.
where do you draw the line?
signed,
curious in colorado.
say cheese!
AE03
Atomic Elroy
CHAOS Studios
http://www.atomicelroy.com
I was gonna say that they (RR) are going to do dodgy stuff even if thay are boycotted by a few artists. As to the association with Tate and the whole PR thing - think about the last great show you went to - can you remember the sponsors? did you buy their product?. Evil corporates are always going to need to give cash away for tax reasons - why shouldn't artists benefit from this even tho' the cash is dirty? Who knows - if the show does really well then RR might decide to spend a bit more money on art and a bit less on evil engines if this keeps happening maybe they will give up on the engines altogether…..
"PRESS RELEASE 19th Jan 2046
Rolls Royce today announced that their aesthetics operations overtook
their military propulsion unit to become their most profitable wing
today.
"Our architectural deconstructives, body notion problematisers and
scoptic refusal devices lead the world in quality concretised aesthetic
discourse" said CEO Richard b'Stard. "We can reduce the text of an
entire town to its constituent discourses faster than offerings from
any other manufacturer, making Rolls Royce the most socially inclusive,
value adding way to enrich the local community through art".
Peace campaigners have complained that you can call warheads, cluster
bombs and laser blinders whatever you like, but that that doesn't make
them art. Dupp responds readily to such criticisms: "Reactionary
kitschmongers always react with fear to challenging new art that
questions their outmoded aesthetics. They should stick to watercolours
and pickling sharks".
RRS stock rose 0.000001EU on the announcement."
- Rob.
On 18 Jan 2004, at 20:52, bruno martelli wrote:
> I was gonna say that they (RR) are going to do dodgy stuff even if
> thay are boycotted by a few artists. As to the association with Tate
> and the whole PR thing - think about the last great show you went to
> - can you remember the sponsors? did you buy their product?. Evil
> corporates are always going to need to give cash away for tax reasons
> - why shouldn't artists benefit from this even tho' the cash is dirty?
> Who knows - if the show does really well then RR might decide to spend
> a bit more money on art and a bit less on evil engines if this keeps
> happening maybe they will give up on the engines altogether…..
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> -> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
Another point on this whole thing is… How many UK artists on the list have
received government grants (ie. Arts Council England). Now, that would be
the same government that launched a war that killed hundreds of innocent
Iraqi civilians, right? So maybe from now on we should only accept French
and German grants because they're about the only ones in Europe who aren't
allowed to make money off the war in Iraq. Oh, but BMW owns Rolls Royce now,
don't they? And before that, Rolls Royce was owned by Volkswagen, I think.
Hmmm… this is going to get pretty complicated.
—– Original Message —–
From: "bruno martelli" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 8:52 PM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: Rolls Royce funding UK arts
> I was gonna say that they (RR) are going to do dodgy stuff even if thay
are boycotted by a few artists. As to the association with Tate and the
whole PR thing - think about the last great show you went to - can you
remember the sponsors? did you buy their product?. Evil corporates are
always going to need to give cash away for tax reasons - why shouldn't
artists benefit from this even tho' the cash is dirty? Who knows - if the
show does really well then RR might decide to spend a bit more money on art
and a bit less on evil engines if this keeps happening maybe they will give
up on the engines altogether…..
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> -> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
Next:
the ART Museum chain
McArt Museum
to open in the world's capitals and put all the private and government sponsored art museums out of business once and for all!
AE04.
Isn't that the Guggenheim? :-)
- Rob.
On Monday, January 19, 2004, at 00:07AM, atomic elroy <[email protected]> wrote:
>Next:
>the ART Museum chain
>
>McArt Museum
> to open in the world's capitals and put all the private and government sponsored art museums out of business once and for all!