ART NOT OIL

Thursday 15th December to Monday 16th January 2006
FREE PUBLIC OPENING: Sunday 18th December, 3-6pm
art - music - food - film - talk

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?

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.

Catch both 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).
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