artwashing

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From art +‎ -wash +‎ -ing.

Noun

artwashing (uncountable)

  1. The use of art and artists in a positive way to distract from or legitimize negative actions by an individual, organization, country, or government, originally in reference to gentrification. [from 2010s]
    • 2014 June 24, Feargus O'Sullivan, “The Pernicious Realities of 'Artwashing'”, in Bloomberg‎[1]:
      When a commercial project is subjected to artwashing, the work and presence of artists and creative workers is used to add a cursory sheen to a place's transformation.
    • 2017 October 10, Anna Minton, “Developers are using culture as a Trojan horse in their planning battles”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      They, and the artists, fear The Denizen risks becoming a similar ghost building. They are also deeply suspicious of the “artwashing” strategy, through which civic bodies, hand in hand with the developers, use culture as a Trojan horse for the advancement of the developers’ schemes.
    • 2019 May 18, Nicola Slawson, “Eurovision: Why Are People Boycotting It? Here's What You Need To Know”, in HuffPost‎[3], →OCLC, archived from the original on 9 May 2024:
      Hundreds of artists and tens of thousands of people across the world have endorsed the call for public broadcasters and artists to withdraw from the event in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s blatant artwashing and pinkwashing of apartheid.
    • 2022 March 17, Oliver Basciano, quoting Ben Lewis, “‘It’s artwashing’: can galleries wean themselves off Russian oligarch loot?”, in The Guardian‎[4], →ISSN:
      Art critic Ben Lewis agrees: “It’s artwashing – it launders oligarchs’ reputations. The more these individuals, and these countries, weave themselves into the international art world, the harder it is to criticise them.”
    • 2024 May 17, Alex Lawson, “‘Art-washing’? Unease as British cultural institutions lend lustre to Saudi trade push”, in The Guardian‎[5], →ISSN:
      Notable in the delegation was a significant contingent of cultural bodies, a move which immediately drew criticism that the Gulf state was “art-washing” – using Britain’s venerable institutions to improve its international image even as concerns over Riyadh’s human rights record continue to mount.

Further reading

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