Oil Painting – Descent Magazine

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Oil tycoon David Koch stepped down from the board of the American Museum of Natural History on December 9, 2015. His departure came just months after dozens of scientists signed a letter calling on the science museum sector to sever ties with the fossil fuel industry. Koch, who oversees the vast Koch Industries with his brother Charles, served as a board member for 23 years and maintains similar arrangements at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Over the years, Koch has donated millions of dollars to these museums, which many argue has allowed him to influence their public programs while simultaneously enhancing the reputation of Koch Industries. His departure from the museum board may signal that the oil giant's efforts to clean up its image in the glitzy corridors of cultural institutions around the world are finally starting to fade.

Criticism of David Koch's influence over science and art museums began long before the 2015 letter. In 2014, activists from Occupy Museums (an arts-focused offshoot of Occupy Wall Street) protested outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum had just announced that it would rename the fountain decorating its exterior entrance David H. Koch Plaza to thank the billionaire who had funded the project with a $65 million donation. Protesters ritually used the fountain's water to cleanse themselves, presumably reflecting the intent of Koch's patronage. Like many before him, Koch no doubt hoped that his donation would help wash away some of the sins of his family's polluting energy empire.

The Koch family's name has been linked to corporate corruption ever since a 2010 Greenpeace report revealed that they were heavily funding climate change deniers who opposed environmental legislation in the United States. New Yorker At the time, the Koch brothers funded a whole network of front groups and think tanks, even outfunding ExxonMobil, now a notorious flag bearer of climate science obfuscation. This strategy is the same one the tobacco industry has used to fight domestic and international policies that threaten its profits. And like the tobacco industry, the oil industry has combined funding to undermine science with cultural sponsorship to whitewash its deteriorating public image. While Charles Koch meets with political advisers and aggressively promotes a liberal political agenda, his brother David runs between art openings and board meetings to ensure favorable PR for the company.

In the United States, the use of sponsorship by the oil industry is as old as the oil industry itself. In Texas, the big oil companies have always presented themselves as trying to give back some of the huge profits they squeezed out of the oil industry to society. Initially, the money was used to weaken the workers. The owners, the Rockefeller family…