Talking about galleries and museums and corporate sponsorship with a group of people, I discovered that Bloomberg, a financial news company who sponsor loads of contemporary art exhibitions and spaces, is also the Bloomberg who is the mayor of New York. I was disgusted at this and vocalised it in a generalised way. I didn't go into why I find it problematic. Later, another day, the idea of sponsorship came up again and someone quipped something about "Bloomberg" as a case of a bad guy sponsoring a show or a space - along the lines of BP or an arms trading company.
I felt bad. I assume the criticism of Bloomberg is anti-Semitism, that is assuming that other people, me included, read the name Bloomberg and assume it's a Jewish. I'm afraid I was misunderstood - criticising Bloomberg because it's a financial company and somehow becasue it's Jewish, perhaps? I don't think that Bloomberg is per se a bad or corrupt sponsor of art. I think it's ironic that a company interested only in the flow of capital, stocks and futures would sponsor contemporary art - there are obvious and ironic parallels - but I have a big problem with anyone with big media influence also having political power... like Berlusconi. It is too much power concentrated in one person's hands - it's problematic for democracy. That's where my issue lies with Bloomberg. I am guessing other people have a problem with them on anti-semitic grounds....?