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  • Artists, Activists Hold Anti-Sackler Protest At The Louvre

    Artists, Activists Hold Anti-Sackler Protest At The Louvre

    Celebrated photographer Nan Goldin led Europe’s first anti-Sackler protest at the Louvre this week.

    P.A.I.N. arrived in Paris over the weekend and gathered at the Louvre on Monday (July 1) to protest the Sackler family’s role in fueling the opioid crisis.

    Led by photographer Nan Goldin, who organized similar rallies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the P.A.I.N. activists (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) were there to protest the Sackler family, members of whom own Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

    Purdue Pharma is facing more than 1,600 lawsuits from American cities, counties and “nearly every U.S. state” for its alleged aggressive marketing of OxyContin and downplaying the risks of becoming dependent on the opioid painkiller.

    Goldin Organizes

    Goldin herself fell victim to the drug. Originally prescribed for surgery, she described becoming “addicted overnight” in a January 2018 essay published in Artforum. Since sharing her own battle with prescription painkiller abuse, Goldin launched protests against the Sacklers where they have donated millions and where their name is displayed prominently—inside major institutions like the Met and the Louvre.

    By rallying at these institutions, Goldin is urging them to stop accepting money from the Sackler family and to remove their name from their walls. “Twelve rooms in the Louvre (in the Oriental Antiquities wing) are named after the Sacklers, following their donation of 10 million francs in 1997,” reads a statement by P.A.I.N. provided to Artforum.

    “We do not accept that the Louvre bears the name of a family complicit in crime. We demand that the Louvre rename the Sackler wing and commit to refusing any criminal donations in the future.”

    Sackler Trusts Halts New Donations

    Since Goldin’s protests, the Sackler Trust has paused all new charitable giving. And the Met, the Guggenheim, the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate have agreed to stop accepting money from the family as well.

    Ultimately, Goldin wants the Sacklers’ fortune to be “clawed back” by the courts, and to be re-distributed toward treatment and outreach programs, as Artforum reported.

    In June, California, Maine and Hawaii joined the long list of plaintiffs suing Purdue Pharma. “The opioid crisis is devastating our communities and killing our loved ones,” said California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra. “Purdue Pharma and Dr. [Richard] Sackler started the fire and then poured gasoline on the opioid crisis with practices that were irresponsible, unconscionable and unlawful.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Crisis Activists "Die In" At Guggenheim Over Sackler Family Ties

    Opioid Crisis Activists "Die In" At Guggenheim Over Sackler Family Ties

    After the Guggenheim, protesters walked two blocks to the Metropolitan Museum, which has a wing named after the Sackler family. 

    Protesters dropped fake prescriptions from balconies, handed out empty pill bottles and laid down as if they were dead at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to call attention to the opioid epidemic and call for the museum and others like it to stop acknowledging the billionaire philanthropists of the Sackler family, members of which founded the company that would become Purdue Pharma, the manufacturers of OxyContin. 

    “I want the Guggenheim and others publicly to disavow themselves from the Sacklers and refuse future funding from them, and I want them to take down the Sackler name from the museums,” Nan Goldin, who organized the protest, told The Guardian.

    Goldin, a photographer who art displayed in the Guggenheim, has been an outspoken critic of the Sackler family after she nearly died of an opioid overdose, following an addiction that she says started when she was prescribed OxyContin, a pill produced by Purdue Pharma. 

    The Sackler family has its name on the Guggenheim and other museums and institutes for the arts. Since the opioid epidemic — and Purdue’s misleading advertising claims — have been in the spotlight more, some have called on these institutions to distance themselves from the family.

    “We’re here to call out the Sackler family. By failing to disavow them now, by refusing to take down their names, the museums are complicit in the opioids crisis.”

    Distributing fake prescriptions from the balconies was meant to call attention to comments made by one member of the Sackler family, claiming that the launch of OxyContin would “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,” said Goldin. 

    According to The New Yorker, the fake scripts were for 80 milligrams of OxyContin to be taken 24 times a day. They also contained a quote: “If OxyContin is uncontrolled, it is highly likely that it will eventually be abused. . . . How substantially would it improve our sales?” The words were pulled from court filling in Massachusetts, where Purdue is being sued for its prescribing practices. 

    After the Guggenheim, protesters walked two blocks to the Metropolitan Museum, which has a wing named after the Sackler family. 

    Visitors to the Guggenheim were initially confused, but a few who spoke to The Guardian said that the protest resonated with them. 

    “It reminded me of stories of protesters laying down in Wall Street during the Aids epidemic. These institutions all have dirty hands,” said Alex Viteri.

    Another man was visiting from New Hampshire, one of the states hardest hit by the opioid epidemic. The man said that his brother-in-law became hooked on opioids after being prescribed OxyContin. Like many people, the brother-in-law progressed to illicit opioids and died of a drug overdose. 

    View the original article at thefix.com