The besieged financier Leon Black has argued with curators at the Museum of Modern Art about his future with the museum in light of disturbing details about his ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the Post found.
Several MoMA curators approached Black – co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management – about stepping down as president of the museum when his term ends on July 1, according to two sources with knowledge of the negotiations.
To complicate matters, the sources said, is whether Black will remain on the board if he steps down as president. The billionaire owner of precious works of art like “The Scream” by Edvard Munch has been a member of the MoMA board since 1997.
If the museum broke ties with Black, who was elected president in 2018, it could jeopardize access to his unique collection, including Rafael’s drawing “Head of a young apostle” that Black bought for a record $ 47.9 million in 2013, a source said.
“Remember, if MoMA expels Black, they will miss out on their personal art collection,” said that person.
Another source denied that Black, a philanthropist and art lover, would deprive the famous museum of his collection, even if he was no longer a board member of more than 50 people.
Remember, if MoMA expels Black, they will miss out on their personal art collection, a source said.
The talks take place at a time when the museum is attacked by prominent artists like Ai Weiwei and photographer Nan Goldin after it was reported in January that Black paid Epstein $ 158 million in taxes and estate planning advice after pleading guilty to Epstein in 2008 for requesting prostitution from a teenager.
Goldin told The Post that he will not show his work at MoMA, even while looking for a location in New York for a retrospective that started at the National Portrait Gallery in London before traveling across Europe.
“I told the museum director that he cannot offer my show to MoMA while Leon Black is there,” said Goldin, who played a role in lobbying other prominent art organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Tate in London, to cut ties with the Sackler family, responsible for the addictive painkiller OxyContin.
“I would love to show at MoMA, but you have to follow your ethics,” she said. “How can MoMA support Leon Black, a man aligned with Jeffrey Epstein who was responsible for the sex trafficking of teenage girls?”
Epstein committed suicide in prison a month after being arrested for the second time in 2019 and accused of running a sex trafficking operation involving dozens of girls under the age of 14.
Black was not charged with any wrongdoing. But his astonishing payments to a convicted sex offender appear to have accelerated his decision to transfer the post of CEO of Apollo to co-founder Marc Rowan in July. Black will remain as president.
When the payments were revealed in January by a law firm that Apollo hired amid investor pressure, Black forwarded the apology letter he had written to Apollo investors to the MoMA board. He concluded the letter by saying, “I hope to see you at our board meeting in February,” according to the New York Times.
A source close to the MoMA council told the Post that the note “irritated people”, given the seriousness of the situation. “After all, he had to step down as Apollo’s CEO.”
Since then, the museum of modern art has twice postponed the council meeting planned for February – first to mid-March and then to late March, the sources said. MoMA confirmed the delays, but insisted that the repeated rescheduling had nothing to do with Black.
“The Board rescheduled its meeting from February to March to allow its financial committees more time to address some important issues before presenting them to the Board for consideration,” said spokeswoman Amanda Hicks. She declined to comment on whether board members have been negotiating with Black about her future there.
Sources say that a decision, if reached, could be announced as early as the next meeting.
Of course, Black is not the only MoMA curator with ties to Black. Curator Glenn Dubin and his wife Eva had a personal relationship with Epstein before and after his conviction in 2008, and MoMA named a gallery in their honor. Artists, including the Guerrilla Girls, also called for Dubin’s resignation.
Black declined to comment. Dubin, who previously denied any wrongdoing, also declined to comment.
A MoMA curator not involved in the current negotiations personally supports Black’s maintenance as president, saying he has helped run the museum through a difficult financial phase.
“We are going through very difficult times financially and he managed it brilliantly,” said the administrator. “Leon has been extremely good for the museum and is taking his work seriously. I hope he gets over it. “
The administrator also considered protests by artists like Goldin and Ai “extremely political”.
“I really believe that MoMA is not an institution of social change, it is a museum,” said the curator. “Nobody has yet sent him to the gallows and I hope he does not go to the gallows.”
As the Post previously reported, Black promised not to cause any problems when he took over in 2018 for Jerry Speyer, who held the position of president for 11 years.
“And you know that when Leon is in charge, you know that he will protect us from disasters, because that guy accompanies all modern masters,” Black sang in front of his friends of art in the palatial four-story Renaissance mansion he he owns the Upper East Side, an old art gallery.