America’s opioid crisis has triggered a reckoning among nonprofits like The Met in New York. Now the famed museum has announced with the Sackler family that the name Sackler will be removed throughout the museum in response to their benefactor’s wealth coming from sales of the opioid Oxycontin.
Via New York Times:
The announcement marks a significant break between the world’s largest museum and one of the world’s biggest benefactors, a potent symbol of the upheaval underway at cultural institutions about where their donations come from. Other museums have refused Sackler money, such as the Serpentine Gallery in London, and some were quicker to remove the Sackler name, including the Louvre in Paris.
The museum had already severed ties to the family’s funding, announcing in 2019 that it would no longer accept gifts from the Sacklers, given their links to the maker of OxyContin.
Photographer Nan Goldin, whose work appears at The Met, led a 2018 protest that saw pill bottles thrown into the fountain in The Met’s Sackler wing. Goldin’s work was associated with the “heroin chic” aesthetic from the start of the opioid crisis, and she herself became addicted to pain medications.
The Met had previously announced they would no long accept Sackler family gifts. The Sackler Wing of The Met houses the Egyptian Temple of Dendur and other priceless artifacts.
Images: Pexels / cottonbro & Wikimedia / The Met
