Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby is sure to be making waves with her upcoming exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso according to Hannah Gadsby (June 2-September 24), which raises provocative questions around the Spanish master such as misogyny and masculinity. Variety magazine did an interview with Gadsby, pointing out that the Picasso exhibition is curated by Catherine Morris whose title is “Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art”. Sackler’s nickname prompted Variety to probe Gadsby on the connection to the eponymous dynasty (the name has become indelibly linked to the global opioid crisis that some family members have profited enormously from – and are accused of fueling – via their company Purdue Pharma).
“I’m doing a show at the Brooklyn Museum,” Gadsby said in the animated report. “There’s a Sackler on the board. We checked that. Apparently they separated their revenue streams from the problematic ones. I mean, take that with a grain of salt. No matter what cultural institution you work with in America, you’re going to be working with billionaires and there isn’t a billionaire on this planet who isn’t screwed. It’s just morally wrong.
The Brooklyn Museum tells us that the report “confused that the title of one of our curators, Catherine Morris (Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art), meant that the Sacklers were involved in or funded one way or another exposure. This is not the case. Many curatorial positions are named after the person or organization that endowed the position. Catherine Morris curated countless exhibits for the museum, however, that does not mean the Sackler family participated in those exhibits.
Incidentally, Elizabeth Sackler told ArtForum in 2018“My father, Arthur M. Sackler, died in 1987, before OxyContin existed and his one-third option on Purdue Frederick was sold by his estate to his brothers [Mortimer and Raymond Sackler] a few months later.”
Gadsby’s 2018 Netflix show Nanette meanwhile “called out the inexcusable behavior of some of the most towering figures in art history, Picasso in particular,” says a statement from the museum online (we can’t wait to see the roast they give to Picasso).
