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NYC: Protesters Blast Guggenheim’s Ties to Sackler Family

HeadlineFeb 11, 2019

In New York City, protesters took over the Guggenheim Museum Saturday night to call out the museum’s relationship with the Sackler family, whose company, Purdue Pharma, produces the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Artist Nan Goldin, who herself became addicted to OxyContin, has been leading calls for art institutions to stop taking money and disassociate themselves from the Sacklers. Goldin and other protesters staged a die-in after dropping thousands of fake prescriptions with anti-Sackler messages from the museum’s famous winding walkway. The action was a reference to a quote by a member of the Sackler family who once claimed the launch of OxyContin would be “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that would bury the competition.” A protest also took place at the nearby Metropolitan Museum.

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