This is especially important to call attention to now, since Azerbaijan is actively engaged in ethnically cleansing an Indigenous community and destroying millennia-old monuments, permanently robbing the world of a rich cultural record. In the last decade, scores of artists and institutions have taken money from the brutal dictatorship of Azerbaijan to artwash its reputation.
Since at least 2011, Azerbaijan has used artists and art institutions for propaganda purposes to a degree that is unequaled in the contemporary era.