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Its support has been instrumental in helping Tate develop access to the Tate collection and to present changing displays of work by a wide range of artists in the national collection of British art.”Īs well as the figures, Tate also released considerable and previously unseen detail from the minutes of the ethics committee, which debated in 2010 whether to continue with BP sponsorship. “BP has worked with Tate since 1990 and fits within the guidelines of this policy. The board and ethics committee regularly review compliance with the policy. “The Tate trustees first agreed a sponsorship policy in 1991, and more recently incorporated its principles within an ethics policy in 2008. The support that these organisations give is extremely important and allows us to deliver a hugely successful and popular programme. “Tate works with a wide range of corporate organisations and generates the majority of its funding from earned income and private sources. Tate said the figures represented “considerable funding.” It added: “BP is one of the most important sponsors of the arts in the UK supporting Tate as well as several other leading cultural institutions. Platform estimates that the BP sums of money represent 0.5% of Tate’s overall operational income A growing wave of universities, faith and government institutions are choosing to divest and break ties with the fossil fuel industry – it’s time for Tate to join them.” Galkina said BP gets far more out of the relationship than Tate, and needs the social licence provided by cultural sponsorship “in order to continue trashing our climate. The figures are embarrassingly small for Tate to go on justifying its BP relationship.” She added: “For nearly a decade, Tate provided a veneer of respectability to one of the world’s most controversial companies for £150,000 a year. Anna Galkina of Platform, another activist group involved in the case, said the eventually released figures were lower than they had estimated. And for what? A tiny percentage of their annual budget? It’s highly embarrassing for Tate, and should result in a decisive change of course.”īrendan Montague of the campaign group Request Initiative made the original freedom of information request in April 2012. “Tate’s reaction to this criticism has been stubborn foot-dragging. He said it was wrong for Tate to take the money given “BP’s horrendous environmental record, and their role in obfuscating climate science and slowing down a meaningful response to climate change – the greatest threat to humanity’s continued survival. Raoul Martinez, an artist whose work has been exhibited at the BP Portrait prize, said he has now decided to not enter the competition again while the oil firm is the sponsor. Others argue that taking the money is wrong on all levels. These are difficult times for the arts and they need the money.”

I’m suspicious of this notion that the arts needs to be ethically funded. “I have no problem with oil companies, we need them. BP has a lot of money and Tate is an important gallery and it would be nice if BP gave more. The writer and cultural sociologist Tiffany Jenkins said they were not insignificant amounts when public money for the arts was declining.īut she added: “The figures are smaller than they should be.

The revelation, which comes after Tate lost at a freedom of information tribunal, put into the spotlight BP’s sponsorship of the arts which continues with a deal in place until 2017 giving £10m over five years to four national institutions: Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum and the Royal Opera House.Īll four say it is money that they need and that other corporations are not willing to provide.