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Thursday, 21 April 2011 01:51

Anti-BP Activists Stage Nude Lie-In, Pour Oil at Tate on Spill Anniversary

A protester belonging to the Liberate Tate group lies covered in an oil-like substance at Tate Britain in London. The protest marks the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, with those taking part urging the Tate to take no more money from BP Plc A protester belonging to the Liberate Tate group lies covered in an oil-like substance at Tate Britain in London. The protest marks the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, with those taking part urging the Tate to take no more money from BP Plc Photographer: Amy Scaife/Liberate Tate via Bloomberg

A naked youth had oil poured over him inside Tate Britain today in an artist-led demonstration against oil company BP Plc (BP/)’s sponsorship of Tate.

The performance marked the first anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S.’s worst-ever oil spill. BP is a longstanding sponsor of Tate Britain, the British Museum, the Royal Opera House and the National Portrait Gallery, and has said it will maintain those London sponsorships, which cost it a total of more than 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) a year.

Today’s action was staged by Liberate Tate, a group of 15 to 20 artists who want BP’s sponsorship of Tate to end. Shortly after Tate Britain’s 10 a.m. opening, about eight black-clad activists entered the building to perform the strip-in.

The young man “removed his clothes carefully and slowly, and handed it to two other people dressed in black,” said Nina Jones, a 27-year-old painter who took part in the protest. He was “curled in a fetal-like position.”

A man and a woman, “both with veils over their faces, arrived from the very back of the gallery carrying two green petrol cans with BP logos on them,” she recalled. “They started to slowly pour the oil over his body.”

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