Art Not Oil comes to Edinburgh

ART NOT OIL at The Bongo Club, 37 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8BA; 0131 558 7604; www.thebongoclub.co.uk
indignation – inspiration – creation…solution?

Exhibition runs from Thursday 15th December to Monday 16th January 2006.

FREE PUBLIC OPENING: Sunday 18th December, 3-6pm: art - music - food - film - talk

As BP soaks up some of its £30m per day windfall profits with a soothingly duplicitous ad campaign, currently infesting UK airwaves, print media and billboards, the BP Portrait Award arrives at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh on the last leg of its 2005-6 UK tour. Meanwhile, its low-budget, high-impact alter ego Art Not Oil comes to Edinburgh's Bongo Club, offering up what it hopes is a truer portrait of an oil company, as well as a celebration of creative dissent.

Climate chaos is set to have a catastrophic effect on all of us, while hitting the poorest hardest. Oil is a curse that also fuels war, poverty and environmental destruction. Yet the companies most responsible are profiting handsomely, and they are still welcome it seems in many of our most prestigious public galleries and museums. Why?

Catch both exhibitions if you can, then make up your own mind. If you come away concerned about the way arts sponsorship diverts public attention from the systematic abuses of the oil industry, one thing you can do is let outgoing National Galleries of Scotland Director-General Timothy Clifford and incoming DG John Leighton know how you feel:
National Galleries of Scotland, The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 2EL;
tel: 0131 624 6200; fax: 0131 623 7126; enquiries@nationalgalleries.org
If emailing, please copy your message to National Portrait Gallery boss Sandy Nairne - snairne@npg.org.uk - as well as to info@artnotoil.org.uk

This is a rolling exhibition, so send us your art (whether or not you see yourself as an artist).

After Edinburgh, and after a bit of a breather, it's back to London, opening at an as-yet-undisclosed location on or around June 1st 2006, the date of the opening of the BP Portrait Award 2006 at the National Portrait Gallery. (2006 will also see a focus on the National Gallery, which is currently hosting the Shell-sponsored 'Rubens' exhibition, as well as boasting a non-executive director of Shell on its board of trustees.)

Look out also in early 2006 for 'Art Not Oil - the [short] Film'!

Leaflets, postcards, images & info available from:
info@artnotoil.org.uk
Tel: 07708 794665
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES.
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.nationalpetroleumgallery.org.uk

Art Not Oil is a project of London Rising TIde:
www.londonrisingtide.org.uk