Tate sponsors under fire again...
Sheesh, there's a lot of anti-Tate sentiment around at the moment. Last week's launch of the Vodafone-sponsored Tate Debate was totally sabotaged by UK Uncut, and now a group of artists have been commissioned to produce a series of sound pieces in response to the sponsorship of Tate by beleaguered oil giants BP.
The works – entitled moderately amusingly Tate a Tate – will consist of three site-specific audio tours across different Tate locations. Notorious corgi-eater and controversial performance artist Mark McGowan heads the list of artists, working alongside composer Isa Suarez and comedian Mae Martin on a piece for Tate Boat, whilst journalist Phil England and artist Jim Welton target Tate Modern, and artist Ansuman Biswas Tate Britain. Biswas, interestingly, has previously shown work at Tate Modern, so this project can't be dismissed simply as Stuckist war-mongering.
The announcement comes amid growing protest against Tate's choice of sponsors. Last week's Tate Debate – sponsored by alleged tax avoiders Vodafone – was the target of mass online action by UK Uncut, whilst 2010 saw the Tate/BP relationship criticised in an open letter to the Guardian signed by the likes of No Logo author Naomi Klein and musician/artist/polymath Billy Childish.
2010 also saw the annual Tate summer party picketed by members of art action group, Good Crude Britannia, and a protest from Liberate Tate which involved releasing black balloons attached with dead fish into the turbine hall at Tate Modern
Liberate Tate are also one of the organisations behind the audio giude protests this year, alongside PLATFORM and Art Not Oil. The project was funded in part through a crowd-funding initiative, and in part, interestingly enough, through Arts Council England, as PLATFORM is one of ACE's regularly funded organisations until the end of 2011. One wonders, threrefore, what Sir Nic Serota will be saying to Dame Liz Forgan at their next dinner party.
The audio tour will be launched this autumn and will be downloadable from a website onto MP3 players and smart phones.
Click here to see what's on at Tate Modern.
Click here to see what's on at Tate Britain.
Return to Spoonfed's London Art homepage.
Photo credit: Liberate Tate - Human Cost by Immo Klink
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