“THE CASE against oil sponsorship,” argues Mel Evans in this impassioned book, “is part of broader resistance to corporate power in public spaces and over public and political life.”

Five years ago, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 and unleashing the worst environmental disaster in US history. The long-term consequences still remain to be seen.

At the time of the disaster, Evans recounts how those responsible — British Petroleum, better known as BP — were honoured at the annual Tate gallery summer party.

Having formed the art activism collective Liberate Tate, both Evans and Anna Feigenbaum hoodwinked their way into the champagne-filled reception to unleash oil-like molasses from beneath their extravagant dresses.

“Here at Tate,” Evans writes, “we replicated BP’s messy clean-up mission … attempting to contain our spill with our nail-polished hands and classy party shoes.”

BP’s ongoing support of the Tate Foundation and the arts more generally is widely recognised but, as Evans rightly points out, corporate sponsorship does not in practice provide a vital income stream for the arts.

Often portrayed as protectors of public access to culture, the oil industry giants give very little hard cash in exchange for a wealth of misleading integrity. This is what Evans calls “artwashing.”

In this well-researched book, Evans takes a strategic approach to untangling the history of philanthrocapitalism and its effect on social, environmental and artistic perceptions.

Using Tate as the main case study, Evans considers the social licence that destructive corporations secure in their associations with art and culture and the political climate that has allowed this incongruous relationship to thrive as government claws back state funding to allow a free market to dominate.

There are, regrettably, overemotional moments in the book which add nothing to the argument and can grate on the reader, as when Evans highlights arts sponsorship provided by transnational migrant detention centre contractors Transfield and Serco: “The discord between creative freedom and incarceration is as sharp as smashed glass in a picture frame,” she writes.

But otherwise this is a sound contribution to the practical and theoretical consequences of a political turn that deceives the public into believing the arts cannot exist without corporate support and, at the same time, condones environmental ruin and devalues social freedom.

Review by Angel Dahouk