New York’s Solomon R. The Guggenheim Museum removed the Sackler family’s name from an education center in recent days, the latest art institute distancing itself from them over its ties to the prescription pain reliever OxyContin.
“The Guggenheim and Mortimer D. Sackler families have agreed to rename the Center for Arts Education,” a spokesman for the museum said Tuesday. “We believe this decision is in the best interest of the museum and the important work it does.”
The move comes the same week that the National Gallery in London also said it would remove Sackler’s name from one of its galleries.
Nan Goldin, a photographer who led a series of high-profile protests against the Sackler-named institutions, including a “die-in” at the Guggenheim in 2019, cheered the news.
“Direct action works,” Goldin said in a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday. “Our group has fought for more than four years to hold the family accountable in the cultural sphere, with focused, effective action and the overwhelming support of local groups that have fought on our side.”
Sacklers gave generously to arts institutions around the world as profits from its pharmaceutical venture, Purdue Pharma, soared. Those institutions built or named grand wings after the family that held a stratospheric place in the world’s philanthropic circles for decades.
But recent investigations link Sacklers to Purdue’s aggressive effort to market OxyContin to millions of Americans and reap billions in profits, even as the opioid epidemic escalates. Critics have called on arts institutions and universities to remove Sackler’s name from the walls, a dam that began to break last year.
New York City’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art removed the family’s name from seven exhibition spaces late last year, including the wing housing the Temple of Dendur. Similar decisions have been taken by the Louvre Museum in Paris, Britain’s Tate Gallery group and the British Museum.
In March the Sacklers reached an agreement with nearly all US states and thousands of local governments to pay up to $6 billion for their role in the opioid crisis, although the family does not admit any wrongdoing or responsibility for the opioid crisis. Is. The full settlement could reach up to $10 billion over time.
However, the deal includes a provision that would protect the family from all current and future civil lawsuits, although this protection would not extend to criminal prosecution. It also included an agreement that the Sacklers would not fight any institution that wanted to remove the family name from buildings established with its support.
Victims of the opioid crisis confronted members of the Sackler family in March.
