Title : Photographer takes on artist family behind OxyContin
link : Photographer takes on artist family behind OxyContin
Photographer takes on artist family behind OxyContin
- Photographer Nan Goldin is petitioning against the Sackler family, who own OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharmaceuticals
- Goldin is famous in part for documenting addiction, including her own
- The Sacklers are also deep-pocketed patrons of the arts, with a wing at the Met, a wing at the Louvre and a wing at the V&A
- Goldin's petition urges artists, galleries and art institutions to refuse donations from the family in a protest against their opioid profits
- The younger art-involved Sackler family members said they support Goldin and distanced themselves from their now-deceased relatives who founded Purdue
Renowned photographer Nan Goldin, herself a recovering opioid addict, is waging a campaign to hold the family behind painkiller brand OxyContin accountable for its role in the epidemic.
The drug is made by one of several companies owned by the Sacklers, who are among the richest families in the US.
The family's drug company, Purdue Pharma, has made tens of billions on opioid sales, and the Sacklers have spent some of that money supporting the arts.
Now, Goldin, 64, is circulating a petition, already signed by more than 6,000 people, demanding artists boycott the Sackler's money and that Purdue Pharma take responsibility for helping to fuel opioid addiction in America.
Celebrated American photographer Nan Goldin survived an opioid addiction and is now spearheading a campaign to hold OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to account
'I survived the opioid crisis. I narrowly escaped,' she says in a statement accompanying her petition on change.org.
After getting treatment, Goldin began researching the opioid epidemic and the mounting deaths.
'I learned that the Sackler family, whose name I knew from museums and galleries, were responsible for the epidemic,' she said.
The Sackler family name can be found branded onto countless art institutions, including several particularly prominent ones, such as:
- Dia Arts Foundation (New York)
- The Guggenheim (New York)
- The American Museum of Natural History (New York)
- A wing at the Louvre (Paris)
- A wing at the Metroplitan Museum (New York)
- A wing at the V&A (London)
- Serpentine Sackler Gallery (London)
- Sackler Museum at Harvard (Boston)
- Sackler Gallery (Washington, DC)
- Sackler Institute at Oxford University (London)
Purdue Pharma's cash cow, the opioid painkiller OxyContin (left) was developed under the leadership of former company chairman Richard Sackler (right)
WHO ARE THE SACKLERS?
The Sackler family's drug company, Purdue Pharma, has made tens of billions on opioid sales, and the Sacklers have spent some of that money supporting the arts.
ARTHUR SACKLER
Arthur, a doctor and psychiatrist, founded a research laboratory in 1938, but Arthur's real genius was in marketing, and he leveraged it to sell a number of medications, including the anti-anxiety drug, Valium.
He owned one-third of Purdue Pharma, which he and his younger brothers Mortimer and Raymond co-founded out of a series of smaller companies they had bought.
Arthur remained a relatively silent partner in the old Purdue, and died in 1987 before it became the company we know it as today.
He never saw any of Purdue's OxyContin profits.
He donated the funds to open a number of medical education programs, libraries and museums.
After his death in 1987, his brothers bought Arthur's portion of Purdue and one of his four children, daughter Elizabeth, has largely taken over his philanthropy work.
MORTIMER SACKLER
Mortimer was an American physician and psychiatrist.
He and his brothers, the older Arthur and the younger Raymond published prolific medical research before buying a number of pharmaceutical companies, including, in 1952, Purdue Pharma.
After Arthur's death Mortimer and Raymond bought out his descendants' share of Purdue Pharma, and in 1991 they created the company that would become a pain management giant we now know.
Mortimer became a lavish arts patron, known for equally extravagant donations and parties, beginning in the 1970s.
He died in 2010.
RAYMOND SACKLER
Raymond was a doctor like his older brothers, and the three were partners in all things until each of their deaths.
Together with Mortimer, Raymond found success with their opioid painkiller, OxyContin, which became the Purdue Pharma's signature drug.
Raymond was milder and more private than his brother, Mortimer.
Raymond had two children, Richard and Jonathan, before his death last year.
RICHARD SACKLER
Richard Sackler followed in his father's footsteps, getting his medical degree at New York University School of Medicine.
He came to Purdue after medical school, leading the research and development that ultimately produced the extended release form of OxyContin that would elevate the family's fortune to previously unfathomable.
He became president of Purdue in 1991, pioneering marketing campaigns (in the vein of his uncle, Arthur) that enticed droves of medical professionals to buy Purdue's opioid.
Richard became co-chairman in 2003, by which point $1.6 billion in OxyContin had been sold.
His marketing schemes sparked suspicion, and in 2015, Richard was deposed before his company paid out a $24 million settlement.
The company appealed in 2017, but the case has not moved forward.
In addition to his arts philanthropy, Richard's foundations have donated to controversial causes, including anti-Muslim groups.
ELIZABETH SACKLER
Arthur's daughter has publicly and persistently attempted to distance herself from branch of her family that has profited from OxyContin.
Elizabeth is a licensed psychiatrist and well-known philanthropist.
She is the founder of an eponymous Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
On Tuesday, she backed Goldin's petition, expressing disgrace for her uncles' business.
Elizabeth Sackler is a patron of the arts and has publicly distinguished herself, and her father, from her uncles and their company, Purdue Pharma.
The Sacklers are descended from three brothers, Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, who all three became doctors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists.
The oldest, Arthur paved the way for the trio, starting a medical research lab, buying up pharmaceutical companies and their patents and becoming an expert at marketing and advertising drugs.
But it was only after Arthur's death in 1987 that his brothers, who had been his business partners, took the name of one of those smaller companies, and formed the Purdue Pharma we know today, in 1991.
The already immense drug company reached new heights when a research team under Raymond's son, Richard, developed an extended release form of OxyContin, which, many have argued, has qualities including being crushable that make it a particularly easy drug to abuse.
Arguably more importantly, he had inherited his uncle's dangerous knack for marketing. OxyContin became a $1.6 billion drug by 2003.
The drug's blockbuster success has raised suspicions, leading to numerous multi-million dollar lawsuits, settlements and fines for misleading branding and accusations, like Goldin's, that the drug is fueling the opioid epidemic.
Raymond Sackler (left) and his wife, Beverly, made sizable donations to a number of educational institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley
Mortimer Sackler (right) was the more flamboyant of the two Purdue Pharma founders, living abroad in Germany and attending lavish parties with his wife, Theresa
Goldin has formed an advocacy group, Prescription Addiction Intervention Now, or PAIN, to pressure the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma to finance treatment and prevention programs, and to re-educate doctors on the dangers of over-prescription of opioids.
Her petition, which circulates on Twitter under the hashtag #ShameOnSackler, calls on museums and universities who benefit from Sackler money - including the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim and Harvard - 'to refuse future donations from the Sacklers.'
Purdue Pharma, which already faces a string of lawsuits, says in an open letter on its website that it is acting to bring the epidemic under control.
'Our industry and our company have and will continue to take meaningful action to reduce opioid abuse,' it said, adding that it was supporting initiatives to educate doctors and develop non-opioid painkillers.
Elizabeth Sackler, a daughter of one of the company's founders, told Hyperallergic that Purdue Pharma's role in the opioid crisis was 'morally abhorrent to me' in a statement.
Elizabeth has long distanced herself from Purdue publicly.
Her father, Arthur, co-owned the smaller, older Purdue Pharma that he and his brothers purchased in 1952, but died before the other two Sackler doctors incorporated Purdue as we know it, in 1991.
Goldin, who lives between New York and Paris, became known in the 1970s with photographs that pushed the boundaries of intimacy and spontaneity, breaking numerous taboos on sexuality. Her work has been exhibited in top museums, including MoMA.
Thus Article Photographer takes on artist family behind OxyContin
You are now reading the article Photographer takes on artist family behind OxyContin with the link address https://coneknews.blogspot.com/2018/01/photographer-takes-on-artist-family.html
0 Response to "Photographer takes on artist family behind OxyContin"
Post a Comment