Tate announces latest corporate partner...
Another week, another announcement of a big corporate tie-in from Tate. The second week of July saw London's most famous art institution team up with a Nigerian bank and now they've just announced a new partnership with everyone's favourite phone provider, Vodafone.
The partnerhsip will launch on Thursday with the catchily named Tate Debates, a weekly online discussion on the Tate blog. Over the course of 2011 Vodafone will also be working in support of Tate's various “digital activities”.
Now, we hate to make predictions about such things, but this looks like it's asking for trouble. Vodafone have been in the news a lot recently for allegedly not paying a £6 billion tax bill, and being let off by Dave Hartnett, the big boss man at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, despite, according to Private Eye, advice to the contrary from HMRC's own lawyers. This has provoked outrage, with UK Uncut protestors staging sit-ins in various Vodafone stores across the country.
In recent times Tate itself has been extensively criticised for its ongoing relationship with BP, by the likes of No Logo author Naomi Klein, corgi-eating performance artist Mark McGowan and musician/artist/polymath Billy Childish, whilst Tate Modern has played host to its fair share of demonstrations from various anti-BP protestors. It's therefore safe to say that people care deeply about where Tate take their money from and we suspect the Vodafone tie-in is not going to be a popular one. UK Uncut are probably plotting their next move already.
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