• Artists who removed a third of the work from the Design Museum’s ‘Hope to Nope’ exhibition, then redisplayed it for free, release statement on 1 year anniversary
• The Nope to Arms Collective, which includes Shepard Fairey, Milton Glaser and Peter Kennard, criticise museum’s lack of action on a promised review of fundraising policies
• Glaser says ‘It is a good time… to revisit the efforts of corporations to identify themselves as supporters of culture rather than the exploiters of culture that they truly are.’

The group of over 40 artists, who removed a third of the work from a Design Museum exhibition on 2 August 2018, are marking the anniversary of their unprecedented protest by highlighting the museum’s lack of action on a promised review of its fundraising policies. The Nope to Arms Collective, which includes artists Shepard Fairey, Milton Glaser and Peter Kennard, have issued a strong statement saying:

‘A year has passed and the museum has apparently done nothing… We are concerned that the museum’s silence means that it has quietly dropped the matter, hoping that we will do the same. But we will not.’ 

A third of the work in the exhibition was removed, causing the museum to make the final weeks free.

They highlight concerns around the museum’s chairman, Peter Mandelson’s, business interests in defence and oil companies and ask the museum to publicly answer a series of specific questions about its promised policy review. They state:

‘Anything less than a decision to rule out future funding from arms, oil and tobacco companies (as it committed to temporarily while undertaking the review) would suggest that the museum is not willing to learn from its mistakes, or has calculated that it can take the money and run while avoiding further scrutiny.’

Artist Peter Kennard removed his work from the Design Museum’s permanent collection in solidarity. Photo Kristian Buus.

Artist Peter Kennard, one of the collective, is publishing his book Visual Dissent (published by Pluto Press) this month, described as ‘50 years of radical, hard-hitting protest art from one of Britain’s most important political artists’. In it he details his decision to remove his work Union Mask from the museum’s permanent collection in solidarity with the Nope to Arms artists. He writes:

‘This is just one example of a growing global movement amongst artworkers to question and fight the connection of arts institutions to corporate money from drug, oil, cigarette and weapons manufacturers who’ve quietly been using culture to whitewash their products for decades. Now, institutions are being put under an ethical spotlight by the actual people who produce the work they rely on for their existence. Dodgy sponsors cannot just silently piggyback on culture to gain a veneer of ethical respectability.’

US artist and designer Milton Glaser says:

‘It is a good time for people in the arts to revisit the efforts of corporations to identify themselves as supporters of culture rather than the exploiters of culture that they truly are.’

This comes as museums are under intensifying pressure over their links to the oil and arms industries, such as BP’s sponsorship of the British Museum and National Portrait Gallery and the resignation of Warren Kanders from the Whitney Museum board. The collective appeal to ‘those working in the cultural sector to join us in demanding much better from our leading arts institutions.’

The artists removed their work in protest after the museum’s hosting of a reception for arms company Leonardo in July 2018, forcing the museum to make the reminder of the exhibition’s run free. The collective then redisplayed the work in their own free exhibition, ‘From Nope to Hope’, six weeks later. The full statement can be read here.