On April 27, the Museum of Modern Art in New York revealed that Marie-Josée Kravis will take over as the chair of its board of trustees. She will replace Leon Black, who resigned last month amid escalating controversy over his financial associations with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
Ronnie Heyman, who has served as president since 2018, was also re-elected for a second term. Both Kravis and Heyman will assume their roles officially on July 1, 2021. Kravis, a distinguished philanthropist and art collector, has been a trustee since 1994 and previously served as president from 2005 to 2018. She is the spouse of Henry Kravis, a billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
The Kravises have made substantial charitable donations, such as $100 million to Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. However, Henry Kravis’s political contributions include a $1 million donation to Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and over $300,000 to the Republican National Committee during the 2016 election cycle.
Marie-Josée Kravis also holds the position of vice chair on the board of trustees at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank influential in Republican politics. Her previous roles include executive director of the Hudson Institute of Canada and a consultant for its New York branch. The leadership at MoMA has been under scrutiny following revelations of Black’s financial transactions with Epstein, prompting calls for the museum to sever ties with him.
Artists and activist groups, including the coalition behind ‘Strike MoMA’, have been vocal in their demands for accountability, describing Kravis’s appointment as a mere ‘musical chairs’ shift. They criticize the board’s interconnections with conservative think tanks and question the museum’s funding sources. Strike MoMA plans further protests, highlighting the election of Kravis as a significant moment for their advocacy.
