The Louvre is bidding ‘adieu’ to the Sackler name.
The renowned Paris museum scrubbed from one of its wings any mention of the billionaire family — principal owners of Purdue Pharma, the drugmaker behind OxyContin, the painkiller blamed in the deadly opioid epidemic.
An Agence France-Presse reporter on Wednesday saw that masking tape was being used to hide the Sackler name on plaques in the rooms of what had been the “Sackler Wing of Oriental Antiquities.”
The Sackler moniker came down this month, amid protests led by photographer and activist Nan Goldin and her campaign group PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), which has been calling on cultural institutions to reject the art patrons.
“Museums belong to the public and the artists, not to donors,” Goldin said, according to The Guardian. They are supposed to be places where people can be educated and experience a higher form of education through art, not a place where they’re coming into contact with dirty money.”
“I think this shows that direct action works. It’s important that this name be scrubbed from institutions and museums.”
The wing was named after the Sacklers due to a $3.6 million donation they made in 1996.
Louvre president Jean-Luc Martinez told the RTL TV-station that the name was wiped because that tribute lasts a maximum of 20 years after a donation is made.
A Louvre spokesperson declined to comment when asked why the name wasn’t taken down three years ago.
In recent months, cultural institutions including New York’s Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museum, and London’s Tate and National Portrait Gallery, said they would stop accepting donations from the family.