Around 100 protestors gathered around the Museum of Modern Art in protest of one of the famed museum’s board members’ ties to the fossil fuel industry.
On Friday, protesters with the organization Climate Defiance gathered at New York City’s MoMA to call for Marie-Josée Kravis to be removed from the museum’s board. Kravis’ husband, Henry Kravis, works for a private equity firm that has heavy ties in the oil and gas sectors, The Art Newspaper reports.
“As we write we are shutting down all entrances to the Museum of Modern Art. We are demanding they stop taking money from climate criminals like Henry Kravis,” Climate Defiance shared in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Henry Kravis leads the private equity firm KKR which is guilty of TORCHING the planet. Kravis does not belong in high society. He belongs in The Hague. We will stay in the MOMA until we get justice.”
Climate Defiance’s X account continually posted updates about the protest, sharing that the museum has fully closed due to the protests as well as videos of the group dancing in the exhibition halls and chanting phrases like “Henry Kravis shame on you, we deserve a future too.”
“We have fully shut down the entirety of the New York City MoMA. This institution took vast sums of wealth from climate criminal Henry Kravis, turning a blind eye to his ecocidal rampages,” they wrote. “So we are closing the whole museum. Respect us or expect us.”
After about one hour, protestors began to leave the museum, chanting “we’ll be back!” according to onlookers.
This is not the first time protestors have focused their efforts on the MoMA. In 2021, the museum blocked a group of activists from the “Strike MoMA” campaign who criticized the institution’s wealthy board members for their influence over the cultural assets in the museum.