The sponsorship of institutions such as the Tate by BP has long been a contentious issue. It comes as no surprise that the oil firm’s decision in March to end the 26 year long sponsorship deal was met with elation by many members of the public, including artists, gallery goers, environmentalists, and human rights activists. However, with government gallery funding at an all time low, are such sponsors necessary in order to keep these institutions afloat? The fact that galleries need sponsorship of some sort cannot be disputed, nor the fact that such funding is becoming harder and harder to find in the current economic climate. The real issue seems to lie with the nature of this sponsorship, and whether our institutions are abandoning their principles and alienating their audiences by accepting money from such notorious enterprises.

The aim of sponsorship should be to develop and support an institution, and many would argue that the large corporate companies that offer this funding certainly shouldn’t have any say in the artistic choices of that institution. If large companies were to have such influence, surely our cultural institutions would be merely jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by committing themselves to control by an entity whose interest will never be purely cultural.

The Art Not Oil campaign, set up in 2004 with the aim of ending BP’s sponsorship of museums and galleries, has made various accusations of BP influencing artistic decisions. In 2005, they accused the National Gallery of not selecting artist James Self to appear in the BP award show, as his art depicted Saddam Hussein adorned with BP insignia. Although this claim has never been verified, is it really surprising that Self’s work wasn’t shortlisted, considering the kind of publicity this would have given the events sponsors?

It has also been alleged recently that Art Not Oil has found evidence of internal documents showing how museums – the British Museum and National Portrait Gallery among them – have worked with BP on staff and exhibition issues. If true, this could have serious implications for the institutions involved, and would most likely result in a full investigation by the Museums Association. The suggestion that the scope of companies such as BP within our cultural institutions is so great is certainly worrying as the potential for a conflict of interest is so obvious.

Furthermore, the idea that BP could use institutions such as the Tate as a means of gaining social license to expand their operations is one that sits uncomfortably with many gallery goers, especially given the increasing threat posed by climate change. There is a strong sense of irony in the British Museum – an establishment dedicated to art, human history, and culture – being sponsored by a company that has inflicted destruction on the people and lands of the Gulf of Mexico and the Niger Delta. Could this apparent divergence of principles threaten to damage the integrity and legitimacy of our great institutions and prevent them from using their authority to take moral stands on such issues, in a time when climate change should be one of our primary concerns?

However, we shouldn’t despair just yet as the recent Guerlain-Versailles collaboration shows that not all sponsorships end in divorce. The pairing of one of Paris’s oldest perfume houses and the former home of Marie Antoinette seems a match made in heaven. Established between two fundamentally cultural institutions, the relation is a symbiotic, mutually beneficial one, with a dedication to beauty being central to both parties. There is perhaps a lot to be learnt from pairings such as these, as they show the possibility of sponsorship with integrity and the importance of selecting sponsors with the same key philosophy – to continue the cultural cultivation of our society.