Following an attempted overnight protest on 15 September at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 16 climate activists were arrested.
Activists from groups including Climate Defenders and New York Communities for Change (NYCC) were protesting MoMA’s ties to businessman Henry Kravis and his wife Marie-Josée Kravis, the museum’s board chair.
Henry Kravis is the co-founder and co-executive chairman of private equity firm KKR, which has invested heavily in oil and gas projects.
“We’re disrupting business as usual because we demand MoMA be accountable. Admit the mistake they’ve made and refuse any association with KKR. Marie-Josee Kravis’s presence on the board is a hideous stain on one of the world’s most significant cultural institutions,” said Laura Esther Wolfson, Extinction Rebellion activist.
KKR is also a major stakeholder in the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, a controversial project opposed by climate activists and leaders of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.
Per a statement, the pipeline is “to be built illegally in Wet’suwet’en territory of British Columbia without consent from the hereditary chiefs”. It is “destroying their water, their wildlife, and the livelihoods of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation”.
The Kravises have donated millions of dollars to the museum. In 2005, they gave MoMA a Matisse painting valued at $25 million. Their names appear on the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio performance space.
MoMA was targeted by climate activists during its annual Party in the Garden fundraising event earlier this year.
The protests at MoMA are part of a larger global movement and come after many climate demonstrations at cultural institutions across the world.
Last month, more than 80 artists, museum directors, writers, researchers and climate activists called on the British Museum to remove BP’s name from its lecture theatre.
In July, climate activists shut down several exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art without touching any artworks.
Image courtesy of New York Communities for Change
