Climate protestors are calling on New York‘s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to drop its board chair, Marie-Josée Kravis.
Yesterday evening (7 June), a small group of environmental activists protested outside the museum – beneath an orange sky caused by smoke from Canada’s intense wildfires – during its annual Party in the Garden fundraising event.
The demonstration, which included protestors from groups such as Organizing Hub, New York Communities for Change, and Reclaim Our Tomorrow, asked MoMA to let go of its board chair, who is married to American businessman Henry Kravis.
Kravis is the co-founder and co-executive chairman of private equity firm KKR, which has invested heavily in oil and gas projects.
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.
The Kravises are MoMA donors whose names appear on the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio performance space. The activists handed out fliers with a QR code to an open letter that asks MoMA to cut ties with the couple.
Protestors crash MoMA fundraising event
“While the MoMA promises to ‘lead on sustainability’, they have no problem doing business with climate criminals like Henry Kravis who are funding the death and displacement of millions,” the letter reads.
“MoMA can’t claim to be a sustainable organization that wants to fight climate change but at the same time have a fossil fuel investor as the chair of the board, with their names on the walls,” Jonathan Westin, an activist with the Climate Organizing Hub, told ARTnews.
“This is directly inspired by what Nan Goldin and other activists did to get to get rid of the Sackler name at the Met.”
Institutions to cut ties with the Sackler family, which is accused of making a profit from the US opioid crisis, include the Louvre, V&A, Guggenheim, British Museum and Tate.
Lead image credit: New York Communities for Change
