LONDON – The British Museum announced its “masterplan” on Tuesday, which details the museum’s intention to substantially renovate its galleries over the next decade. The masterplan will be substantially financed by BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, one of the world’s largest oil companies, who have committed £50 million, or about $63 million dollars, to the project.
Over the summer, TWH reported that the British Museum appeared to have quietly cut ties to BP, a move that climate activists had described as a “massive victory.” That story was based on freedom of information requests by the activist group Culture Unstained, which indicated that BP was not sponsoring any exhibits at the museum and only had the right to exercise certain “sponsor benefits” until the end of 2023.
British Museum Grand Court [Diliff, Wikimedia Commons, CC 3.0]
It is now clear, however, that while BP may not have sponsored any active exhibits after February, the museum and the corporation had been negotiating the masterplan since at least June, according to The Art Newspaper. The tense negotiations led to one trustee resigning and the board of trustees chair, George Osborne, to recuse himself due to a conflict of interest. (Osborne is an investment banker and BP is one of his firm’s clients.)
Some trustees noted their personal disagreements with taking money from the oil company, but unanimously – following the resignation of the writer Muriel Gray from the board, at any rate – agreed to accept the sponsorship.
The head of security noted during one board meeting that “the risk of an attempt to damage the collection might be heightened following the announcement of the corporate sponsorship under discussion and could not be fully avoided without inhibiting public access to the collection.”
The British Museum and other major cultural institutions like the Tate Modern and the National Portrait Gallery have been the focus of numerous climate protests in recent years, which sometimes include protestors defacing artworks (though rarely resulting in lasting damage.)
Chris Garrard, the director of Culture Unleashed, described BP’s involvement in the masterplan as “astonishingly out of touch and completely indefensible,” according to the Museums Association. Garrard indicated his group would seek to challenge the plan in court.
“The only way you can sign up to a new sponsorship deal with a planet-wrecking fossil fuel company in 2023 is by burying your head in the sand, pretending the climate crisis isn’t happening and ignoring the almost complete rejection of fossil fuel funding by the cultural sector in recent years,” said Garrard.
Protestor dressed in ancient Greek garb to protest BP at the British Museum in 2020 [Steve Eason, Flickr, CC 2.0]
The masterplan would involve major renovations to the British Museum’s facilities, with a focus on the “Western Range” galleries that currently hold items from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, including the disputed Parthenon Marbles and the Rosetta Stone. There will be an architectural competition next year to redesign these galleries, which represent about one-third of the museum’s footprint.
“The British Museum is one of the largest and most visited cultural institutions in the world,” said Charlie Mayfield, chair of the masterplan committee, “but some of its buildings are over 200 years old and in urgent need of refurbishment. That’s why the masterplan is so essential – and it’s exciting to be moving forward with our plans.”
One touted feature of the masterplan is a new energy centre, which the museum claims will “see the phasing out of the use of fossil fuels within the Museum’s estate, replacing them with low carbon technologies.” The emphasis on the promise of this environmentally sustainable power plant points to how BP’s sponsorship is effective “greenwashing,” where a polluting company can improve its image by giving relatively small amounts of money to highly visible environmental projects.
“As a business that has made Britain its home for over a century,” wrote Louise Kingham, a senior vice president for BP, “we are proud to be a long-term partner to this important British institution and play our part in its future transformation – whilst helping to ensure that this iconic cultural venue remains freely accessible to all.”
Ms. Kingham was given the last word in the museum’s statement.
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