(Credits: Acabashi)
In early 2022, Tate Britain confirmed they would be removing all references to the controversial sponsor from all their galleries. In a recent interview, the chair of their board of trustees, Roland Rudd, discussed how they approach parting from the Sackler family and their problematic legacy.
At many of the most prominent art institutions in the world, the Sackler family name will be bestowed. While they’re huge donors to cultural collections, the family also owned large pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue Pharma, and have faced lawsuits regarding overprescription of addictive pharmaceutical drugs, including OxyContin.
They played a major role in the opioid epidemic in the United States, with several charities still working to bring awareness to the family’s involvement and have them removed from the art world.
In 2022, Tate tethered their connection to the family after several artists, including Nan Goldin, became vocal activists on the issue, covering it extensively in her documentary All The Beauty and The Bloodshed. Roland Rudd has sat on the gallery’s trustee board since 2017.
Remembering the decision to remove the Sackler name, Rudd recalls it politely as he said, “The important thing is to do it properly I went to the [Sackler] family and I said, ‘We’re going to have a problem and it’s going to get really nasty in terms of people protesting and being upset. It’s better for you and us if we agree to take your name down.’”
In conversation with The Sunday Times, he continued, “To be fair, they behaved impeccably. What they didn’t want was a great song and dance about it, and we didn’t do that.”
However, Rudd recognises that the decision couldn’t be taken lightly or enacted simply. “You can’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Oh, we took money from these people but now we think they’re awful’”, he explained. A few other controversies have hit the gallery since, most notably Tate Britain’s decision to rehang Rex Whistler’s racist 1920s mural The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats. Yet, in the eyes of the team at the gallery, both these decisions regarding artwork and the decision to remove the Sackler name are part of a tricky and evolving balance. “It’s difficult because we can’t be apolitical or a campaigning organisation. People don’t want to be lectured,” Rudd said.
In The Sunday Times report, they estimated that the Tate has running costs of £100million and brings in grant-in-aid income of £42m from the government while “stretching itself to make more commercial revenues”. They reportedly received around £4m from the Sacklers over two decades.