Taking a Stand
Doctors Ought to Care, BUGA-Up, and artists Doug Minkler and Hans Haacke ridicule art museums that take cigarette company money.
“Artists as Ashtrays”
Poster by Doug Minkler (text by Alan Blum, MD)
Commissioned by DOC (Doctors Ought to Care)
(Minkler is a Berkeley artist who creates silkscreen posters for anti-war, ecology, education, labor and criminal justice organizations. His works have been exhibited at many museums and galleries. https://www.dminkler.com/index.html )
1988
“Doctors, Artists Join to Un-do Tobacco-Art Ties” (2 pages)
DOC News and Views
Doctors Ought to Care
Spring 1988
“Museum Malignancy” (2 pages)
Commentary by Alan Blum, MD on Philip Morris’s sponsorship of exhibitions at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts
Public News (Houston alt-weekly)
June 14, 1995
Letter from artist Doug Minkler to James Mollison, Director of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), who had acquired works by the artist. Minkler requested that the museum inform artists if their works are included in tobacco industry-sponsored exhibition and asked that his own works not be used in association with the tobacco industry. (4 pages)
May 12, 1988
“Come to Where the Frida is…” (2 pages)
Distributed at performances of the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet sponsored by Philip Morris
(Front / Back)
Parody Program
(DOC) Doctors Ought to Care
1993
Alan Blum, MD describes the “house call” on February 26, 1983 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by members of DOC (Doctors Ought to Care) and New Jersey GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution) to protest the sponsorship by Marlboro cigarette-maker Philip Morris of the exhibition, “The Vatican Collections; Papacy and Art.” (01:35)
The Vatican Collections The Papacy and Art (5 pages)
Catalogue of exhibition sponsored by Philip Morris Incorporated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(Cover, Acknowledgements, Papal Profile)
1983
“Lift Up Your Heart”
Advertisement by Philip Morris Incorporated in The New York Times Magazine and other publications for the exhibition, “The Vatican Collections: Papacy and Art”
1983
“It takes art to make a company great”
–Philip Morris promotional tagline
DOC house call at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photographs
DOC (Doctors Ought to Care)
February 26, 1983
“Vatican art exhibition’s sponsor has him smoking”
Column by religion editor Roy Larson
Chicago Sun Times
November 27, 1982
“GASP Protests Cigaret Promos”
New Jersey GASP [Group Against Smoking Pollution] Newsletter
April 1983
“How to get tickets today for… ‘The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art'”
Advertisement by Philip Morris Incorporated
The New York Times
February 1983
“A ‘Ceremonial Picketing'”
New York Day by Day column by Robin Herman and Laurie Johnston
The New York Times
February 28, 1983
“Msgr. [Monseigneur] Eugene V. Clark, a former archdiocese [of New York] spokesman who represented the Vatican Museum in some negotiations, said, ‘The sponsor is not Philip Morris as a cigarette company but Philip Morris Inc.’ Since the corporation’s $3 million grant is to the museum, he said, ‘the Vatican does not have necessity to answer’ such objections.”
BUGA-Up (Billboard utilising graffitists against unhealthy promotions) (5 pages)
Catalogue cover and four photographs of re-faced billboards by the Australian activist group that risked arrest by touching up advertisements for cigarettes, alcohol, and soda, as well as sexist ads.
Sydney, New South Wales
See also:
https://www.bugaup.org/
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/billboard-utilising-graffitists-against-unhealthy-promotions-buga-campaigns-against-tobacco-#case-study-detail
Autumn 1980
“A tracheostomy for the Marlboro Man” (5 pages)
Cover article by Renee Bittoun
Medical Journal of Australia
July 24, 1982
“It’s a bore”
Photographs of BUGA-Up’s [Billboard Utilizing Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions] re-faced cigarette billboard artworks
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
1981-1982
“LOVE A LUNG BURNT COUNTRY?”
“SAVIOUR MONEY” “MERRY QUITMUCK AND A HAPPY NEW LUNG”
“New. Vile. And a bore.” “POO. THIS MACHO STINKS”
BUGA-Up’s protest of the display of a Marlboro Formula One race car in the lobby of the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Gallery of seven photographs of the event at which Ric Bolzan chained himself to the race car as demonstrators poured cigarette butts on it. He was arrested but prevailed in court.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Utilising_Graffitists_Against_Unhealthy_Promotions
1982
“Tobacco Company Sponsorship of the Arts — Think Again”
Flyer distributed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at house call by DOC (Doctors Ought to Care) and New Jersey GASP
Artwork adapted from BUGA-Up flyer
February 26, 1983
“Warning: Funding of arts through tobacco profits can be hazardous to public health”
Commentary by Steven G. Kellman
San Antonio Light
March 29, 1987
“The art of drug pushing”
Reverse side of flyer distributed at house call by DOC and New Jersey GASP
February 26, 1983
Letter from artist Hans Haacke letter to Alan Blum, MD
September 21, 1989
“A Giant Artistic Gibe at Jesse Helms”
Article by Roberta Smith
The New York Times
April 20, 1990
Artworks Critical of Sponsorship of the Arts by Corporations
Hans Haacke
1976-1981
Script for Slide Presentation on Tobacco Sponsorship of the Arts (6 pages)
Alan Blum, MD
2003
Abstract for Symposium on Tobacco Sponsorship of the Arts
Alan Blum, MD
National Conference on Tobacco and Health
2005
Texas Association of Museums Annual Conference
(2 Pages)
Program
April 12, 1996
List of Slides in Presentation – Artists As Ashtrays The Ethics of Tobacco Sponsorship of the Arts
Alan Blum, MD
April 12, 1996
Notes on six tobacco-sponsored cultural attractions in New York City during December 1994 (3 pages)
“This is an example of a ‘single-day biopsy’ that I performed many times during my tracking of the tobacco industry as a parasitic disease. I planned my itinerary for the day around Philip Morris-sponsored cultural activities plus the R.J. Reynolds Winston Cup banquet at the Waldorf Astoria. I walked up to the ballroom and onto the stage where the nationally televised live Winston Cup awards banquet was all set up–taking photographs all the while. No one stopped me. This was just a few hours before the event.
“The notes are an ethnographic account of a moment in time as seen from the vantage point of a cigarette marketer.”
Alan Blum, MD
Art Patch Sponsoring Seattle Exhibition of “Cartoonists Take Up Smoking” (8 pages)
Art Patch, King County Department of Health, Seattle, Washington
2005
Effort to Replace Tobacco Sponsorship of the Arts (12 pages)
Art Patch, King County Health Department, Seattle, Washington
Correspondence with Roger Valdez, Art Patch creator
2005-2006
“Cartoonists Take Up Smoking” Flyer
Seattle Art Patch
2005
Letter of rejection to exhibit “Cartoonists Take Up Smoking” (3 pages)
Letter, Catalogue Cover, Sponsor’s Page
Mid-America Arts Alliance
2005
Curator’s note: Altria was a principal sponsor of the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
“City Under Siege: Tobacco Sponsorship of the Arts” (05:27)
Investigative news story by Ned Hibberd
Fox 26 TV, Houston, Texas
1995
“The Art of John Biggers: View from the Upper Room”
Brochure (2 pages) and 9 photographs of house call at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts by DOC (Doctors Ought to Care) to protest sponsorship of the exhibition by Philip Morris Companies Inc.
1995
