Abstract
The opioid crisis is a significant American public health emergency caused by Purdue Pharma’s addictive painkiller OxyContin, and which uniquely implicates global art institutions. Purdue Pharma’s owners and operators, the Sackler family, were prominent art world philanthropists. Their extensive philanthropy was financed through extreme public harm, yet enabled institutional operation and expansion. The Sackler name’s presentation in institutional contexts distanced the family from this harm, making public relations agents of art institutions and undermining their social and civic functions. Nan Goldin, innovative American photographer, became addicted to OxyContin in 2014. Horrified by the interrelation of art institutions with this personally impactful crisis, Goldin founded activist group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN), holding both the Sackler family and related art institutions accountable. PAIN’s activist methods expose the art institution’s ongoing crisis of care, symptomatic of which is funding from unethical philanthropists like the Sacklers. This paper examines how PAIN sustains and develops the critical methods and ideas of institutional critique as an art historical movement, historicising PAIN while tracing the movement’s development from its first to third wave. In doing so, this paper argues that contemporary, third-wave institutional critique is enacted by activist collectives synthesising criticism with notions of care, theorising the relevance of care ethics to the contemporary function and operation of art institutions. Through an investigation of PAIN’s activism challenging the problematic funding practices of art institutions, this paper contributes to deeply relevant contemporary debates regarding accountability, care, and the social function of art and art institutions.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Activist Art, Care Ethics, Institutional Ethics, Socially-Engaged Art, Social Justice
