Metropolitan Museum of Art removes Sackler name from exhibition halls amid opioid crisis pressure

An announcement from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reveals that seven exhibition spaces will no longer bear the Sackler family name. This change follows years of increasing scrutiny directed at arts institutions associated with the Sacklers, who were the owners of Purdue Pharma, the producer of OxyContin. Since 2019, major museums globally, such as London's Tate and Serpentine galleries, New York's Guggenheim, and Paris's Louvre, have severed ties with the family by rejecting donations or removing their name. Artist Nan Goldin led protests against this support, notably in 2019 at the Met's Sackler Wing, where she threw hundreds of painkiller bottles into the Temple of Dendur's moat. The Sackler family expressed their hope for continued support for the museum, while Met president Dan Weiss hailed the decision as a positive step for the institution's mission. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that opioid overdoses led to nearly half a million fatalities from 1999 to 2019.