Colin Moynihan

In a charge filed on Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board, the organizers wrote that the foundation “has illegally discriminated against its employees by laying off employees en masse and/or closing its facility.”

The charge, filed by District Council 36 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, asked that the foundation be required to reinstate the employees, recognize and bargain with the union and reopen the museum, which was closed this week.

A spokesman for the foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The dispute between the union and the foundation began on Nov. 1 when District Council 36 filed a petition with the NLRB seeking to represent about 70 visitor services associates and other employees at the foundation, which has a heralded collection created by Paul and Maurice Marciano, two brothers who helped build the Guess jeans empire.

The visitors services associates, whose pay was tied to Los Angeles’ minimum rate of $14.25 an hour, said they wanted to form a union in part to ask for a raise. Their duties included assisting with ticketing and other services and discussing artworks and exhibitions with visitors.

Just days after the announcement of the unionization effort, employees at the museum were informed in writing by the foundation that “due to low attendance the past few weeks” it was closing the current exhibition early and that “effective Thursday Nov. 7 we will be laying off all the Visitor Services associates.”

A statement on the foundation’s website on Friday said it “will remain closed to the public until further notice.”

Employers are generally allowed to dismiss workers as part of a business decision. But according to federal law employers cannot “discharge, constructively discharge, suspend, lock out, lay off, fail to recall from layoff” or otherwise take adverse action against employees because they support a union or take part in union activities.

The Marciano Art Foundation, housed in a 90,000-square foot former Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard, opened in 2017 as a showcase for artworks by artists including David Hammons, Damien Hirst and Cindy Sherman collected by the two Marciano brothers.

This article originally appeared in

Marciano Art Foundation Is Accused of Unfair Labor Practices

Labor organizers in Los Angeles have accused the Marciano Art Foundation, a private museum, of violating federal law by dismissing dozens of employees after they announced that they wanted to form a union.

“As an organization, we are supportive of all recommendations to improve the workplace experience,” the museum’s statement went on to say, adding that it anticipated “discussions.”

Instead, workers who had sought unionization received an email from the foundation Tuesday evening that said, “Effective Thursday Nov. 7, we will be laying off all of the Visitors Services Associates.”

The foundation, a private museum with a heralded collection that was opened by two of the brothers who started the Guess clothing empire, cited “low attendance the past few weeks” in the email and said it would close “the current exhibition” Wednesday. The museum also said it would pay the affected workers for up to two weeks’ scheduled time “upon receiving a signed separation agreement.”

The move, which was reported first by the Los Angeles Times, caused ripples in that city, where the museum was widely seen as an ambitious project.

Union officials, who filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board Friday seeking to represent about 70 employees, called the dismissals “clearly retaliatory.” An employee who lost his job said that the decision was reminiscent of how Guess reacted to unionization efforts 20 years ago.

The organizing at the foundation was the latest in a series of such efforts at museums across the country, including the New Museum and the Guggenheim in New York, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.

The creators, Maurice and Paul Marciano, started Guess in 1981 with two other brothers, then became known as art collectors. Maurice served for several years on the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He is now chair emeritus. In 2017, the two opened their private institution in a former Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard that their foundation bought for $8 million. The collection includes about 1,500 works by artists including Cindy Sherman, David Hammons and Damien Hirst, and the museum has put on shows by Jim Shaw and Ai Weiwei.

On Wednesday, the museum’s website said: “The foundation will remain closed to the public until further notice.” Two shows, by artists Donna Huanca and Anna Uddenberg, that had initially been scheduled to run until Dec. 1 were listed as having ended Monday.

Only people with titles that would have been covered by the union lost their jobs, said Lylwyn Esangga, organizing director with District Council 36 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which filed the NLRB petition.

The union asked to represent employees including docents and visitors services associates, who talk with visitors about exhibits and help with ticketing, among other tasks.

The administrative staff members, supervisors and directors did not appear to be affected, said Esangga, adding that although attendance at the museum had been low, it had not been presented as tied to employment.

She said the union was talking with its lawyers about filing a complaint with the NLRB alleging that the museum had engaged in unfair labor practices, calling its move “an anti-union tactic.”

A museum spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Samuel Estreicher, a labor expert at New York University School of Law, said that as a general practice, employers are allowed to lay off employees as a part of a business decision but cannot discriminate against people for trying to start a union.

“It’s a motive issue,” he said, adding that a determination on whether the action violated labor law would likely depend in part on what had been in the works at the museum.

Eli Petzold, who lost his job, said that he and other visitors services associates had been shocked. Speaking of the brothers behind the foundation, he added: “I think they think they can treat their art museum like it’s Guess.”

Guess was widely criticized for its labor practices in the 1990s. In 1992, The company agreed to self-policing to help settle a federal investigation that found large-scale wage and child-labor violations by its contractors. It was later placed on probation from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trendsetter list, an honor roll of apparel makers that were considered sweatshop-free.

Under pressure from the NLRB, Guess agreed in 1997 to reinstate 20 workers who said they had been fired because of union activities, the Los Angeles Times reported. The company acknowledged no wrongdoing and said it did not do anything to oppose the union. That year, the company also moved most of its manufacturing to Mexico.

Marciano Art Foundation Lays Off Employees Trying to Unionize

Last week, after employees at the Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles announced that they were taking steps to form a union, the museum issued a statement saying it looked forward to “engaging with them to learn more about their requests.”

The defendants, Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman, were among 10 men who prosecutors said attacked four people protesting a speech at the Metropolitan Republican Club by the Proud Boys founder, Gavin McInnes.

The masked protesters, who did not cooperate with the police, were believed to be self-described anti-fascists.

In the sentencing, Justice Mark Dwyer said the punishment was meant in part to deter others who seek to turn political differences into partisan street brawls.

“I know enough about history to know what happened in Europe in the ‘30s,” he said.

The violence in October last year was captured in photographs and video, generating outrage and prompting condemnation from Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, among others.

The brawl, which took place on East 82nd Street near Park Avenue, was seen by many as mirroring similar clashes between right and left in places like Berkeley, California, Portland, Oregon, and Charlottesville, Virginia.

Both defendants were convicted in August of attempted gang assault, attempted assault and riot. Seven others charged in the incident pleaded guilty.

In court Tuesday, a prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass recommended that Dwyer sentence Hare and Kinsman to five years in prison, saying “violence meant to intimidate and silence” should have no place in society.

He cited a history of conflict between the Proud Boys — who are generally supporters of President Donald Trump and disdain liberals, feminists and Islam — and antifa, a loose affiliation of left-leaning activists who advocate using physical force against people they see as fascists.

“In cities across America these two groups have repeatedly engaged in violence against one another,” he added. “It became clear during this trial that violence is very much ingrained in the Proud Boys ethos.”

The defendants apologized for their actions. Hare, 27, who initiated the attack last October, said: “I made a mistake that night.”

Kinsman, 40, whom a prosecutor had called “the single most vicious of all the attackers,” said: “I regret the entire incident.”

Dwyer also appeared to lay some of the blame for the violence at the feet of McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Magazine who created the Proud Boys in 2016 and who was not involved in the court proceedings. Though he did not mention McInnes by name, the judge referred to the leadership of the group.

“It’s a shame when some people jump up and down on a platform,” the judge said, “and their followers, their soldiers, get in trouble.”

2 Proud Boys Sentenced to 4 Years in Brawl With Anti-Fascists at Republican Club

NEW YORK — Two members of the far-right Proud Boys were each sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday by a state Supreme Court judge in Manhattan who criticized their participation in a “political street fight” last year on the Upper East Side.

Wasn’t it true, the prosecutor asked the witness, Maxwell Hare, that he had been onstage with McInnes in 2018 when he spoke about assaulting people? Did he remember McInnes saying another time that there is “not enough violence” these days?

And was Hare familiar with McInnes’ belief that one is not a man until, among other things, he has beaten someone up and been beaten up?

On Wednesday, during closing arguments, a prosecutor was even more direct: “Gavin McInnes is not a harmless satirist. He is a hatemonger.”

McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Magazine, was not charged in connection with the brawl last October near the Metropolitan Republican Club on the Upper East Side, when 10 of his followers attacked a handful of masked left-wing protesters.

But during the trial of Hare and another member of the Proud Boys, John Kinsman, who are both charged with attempted assault and riot, Manhattan prosecutors have suggested some of the blame for the violence should land on McInnes.

During closing arguments on Wednesday, the defense said that McInnes was being “demonized.”

Video from the October incident shows that Hare and Kinsman, along with eight others, surrounded and beat four people believed to have been part of Antifa, a group of self-described anti-fascists whose members have fought far-right groups.

During the trial, which began in late July, Hare and Kinsman have said their actions were justified. Seven other defendants connected to the Proud Boys have pleaded guilty in the case; an eighth is awaiting trial.

McInnes, who started the Proud Boys in 2016, was not present during the fighting but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has still painted an unfavorable portrait of him.

Again and again, prosecutors have turned to his words to convince jurors that the Proud Boys, who describe themselves as patriots and “Western chauvinists” who reject political correctness, are prone to violence and tolerant of misogynistic, racist and xenophobic sentiments.

By repeatedly citing McInnes, prosecutors have also tied him to an organization that he has recently sought to distance himself from.

Last November, McInnes said he was reluctantly quitting the Proud Boys “in all capacities, forever,” because his lawyers had told him the gesture might help members who had been arrested after his talk.

At the time, McInnes said the Proud Boys were not extremists and had no ties to white nationalists, though he added, “This whole idea of white nationalists and white supremacy is a crock” and “such people don’t exist.”

Responding to an email on Monday, McInnes said he had only ever advocated self-defense. “I never suggested random acts of violence,” he wrote.

McInnes said his jokes and parodies of racism had been misconstrued. He added that many statements made about him during the trial by prosecutors had been inaccurate or misleading. That included the prosecution’s assertion that he had once referred to President Barack Obama as a “monkey,” which McInnes said was “100 percent false.”

“The left scrutinizes jokes and denies they’re jokes in order to crowbar some kind of malicious agenda within the joke,” he said in the email.

McInnes has not entirely abandoned all right-wing activism. In July, he appeared at a rally in Washington, described fighting Antifa and told the crowd — which appeared to include some members of the Proud Boys — “The truth is we don’t start fights. We finish them.”

The street violence on the Upper East Side took place on Oct. 12, after McInnes had appeared inside the Republican club and had reenacted the 1960 murder of a Japanese socialist leader by a teenage ultranationalist.

People had gathered outside to protest. The night before, hooded figures had broken windows at the club, sprayed anarchist symbols on its doors and promised future attacks in leaflets that also denounced McInnes as a “hipster-fascist clown.”

After his appearance, McInnes departed the club brandishing what he later said was a plastic sword. Later that night, members and associates of the Proud Boys ran at and attacked four people wearing black clothes and masks, who police said had circled the block to intercept them.

The first witness in the trial, Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, challenged the notion that the Proud Boys fight only in self-defense. He listed incidents in Berkeley, California, and elsewhere where they were said to have attacked others.

He said McInnes had made violence one of the “core tenets” of the Proud Boys, promoting and glorifying the concept of attacking enemies, and himself punching a protester in Washington the night before Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration in 2017.

Beyond that, Segal said, McInnes had referred to actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who is black, as a “monkey” and referred to the United States as a “white country.”

Although McInnes has often said his comments were satirical, Segal said that such remarks appeared to be tactically couched, adding that hate “is easier to digest, particularly for young people online,” when it is combined with humor.

Testimony by three members of the Proud Boys, including both defendants, opened the door during the trial to an examination of remarks attributed to McInnes.

Hare acknowledged he had heard some of the potentially inflammatory statements the prosecution cited but maintained he had not heard McInnes incite violence. He said McInnes’ comments that there is “not enough violence” and “fighting solves everything” were phrases related to “boxing.”

On Tuesday, the final defense witness, Kinsman, said McInnes was “just a regular conservative dude.”

When the lead prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, asked Kinsman’s opinion of negative remarks McInnes allegedly had made about gay people, Jews, Muslims, women and others, Kinsman said he thought they were presented out of context.

“I don’t agree with those quotes,” he said. “But when I hear Gavin defend it, it makes sense.”

Another Proud Boy who testified for the defense, Christopher Wright, had used his phone to record some of the fighting on Oct. 12 and celebrations afterward by Hare and others. He testified that he considered McInnes a “comedian” engaged in “political commentary.”

Responding to a question from Steinglass, Wright said he thought it could be funny, depending on context, when McInnes used slurs to refer to gay people and Asians.

Steinglass then asked whether it was funny for McInnes to call Obama “his favorite monkey.”

“Do I find that particular joke funny, no,” Wright, who is black, replied. “There are a lot of jokes I don’t find funny.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/nyregion/proud-boys-trial-gavin-mcinnes.html" id="f4cb38f6-1bbc-3517-a3bc-d59e51c2964e">The New York Times</a>.

Far-Right Leader Is Not at Trial, but He Is Often Invoked by Prosecutors

NEW YORK — Soon after a member of the far-right Proud Boys, who is accused of attacking left-wing protesters last October, took the witness stand in his own defense last week, a prosecutor questioned him about the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes.

Ten members and associates of the Proud Boys, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a “hate group,” were arrested as a result of the altercation. And this week, two are going to trial in what appears to be the first time members of the group, which have clashed with left-wing opponents in other parts of the country, will appear before a jury to face charges stemming from an attack.

Jurors, however, are unlikely to hear from any of those who were beaten.

The four victims have not cooperated with the authorities, who do not even know their names. They are identified in an indictment only as Shaved Head, Ponytail, Khaki and Spiky Belt.

Phillip Walzak, the Police Department’s main spokesman, said footage from police body cameras showed that victims refused to talk with officers who sought statements after arriving on 82nd Street as the attacks were taking place.

As a result, prosecutors have been unable to pursue charges of assault, which requires evidence of injury. Instead, the defendants have been charged with riot and with attempted assault, which requires only evidence of intent to cause injury.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to lean heavily on video from multiple sources that show the defendants — Maxwell Hare, who prosecutors said started the fighting, and John Kinsman, accused by prosecutors of being “the single most vicious of all the attackers”— punching and kicking protesters.

“The primary evidence before the grand jury — and the only evidence of how the physical altercation began — was video evidence,” a prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, wrote in a court filing.

Daniel R. Alonso, a former federal prosecutor and former chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said that trying a criminal case without victim testimony may be somewhat unusual, but is hardly unheard-of.

“The law doesn’t specify any particular method by which the DA is required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

The trial is sure to be watched closely, in large part because it will explore events that fit into a broad pattern of violence defined by clashing ideologies.

“This case involves allegations of a violent clash between two opposing groups,” Justice Mark J. Dwyer of state Supreme Court in Manhattan told prospective jurors Monday.

Over the past few years, far-right groups, often denouncing communism or calling for “free speech,” have fought repeatedly with a loose-knit coalition of self-described anti-fascists known as Antifa, who say that the right-wing groups are a threat that should be countered physically.

Roiling conflicts — in places like Berkeley, California; Portland, Maine; and Providence, Rhode Island — have included the use of homemade shields, clubs, batons and pepper spray. In 2017, a participant in a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing a woman named Heather Heyer. The driver, James Fields Jr., was sentenced to life in prison last month.

Members of the Proud Boys were at that rally and have shown up at other events attended by white supremacists or extremists. But leaders of the group — which includes nationalists and libertarians who oppose Islam, feminism and liberal politics — say they disavow racism and hate.

The Upper East Side incident took place after Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice magazine who started the Proud Boys in New York City in 2016, appeared at the Metropolitan Republican Club on 83rd Street.

Afterward, police said, a small group of protesters circled the block attempting to intercept a large number of Proud Boys walking south on Park Avenue.

A video documentarian, Sandi Bachom, recorded part of the fighting on East 82nd Street. Footage from a man, Christopher Wright, who accompanied the Proud Boys that night, depicted some exulting afterward, and Hare shouting that he had “smashed” a victim’s head.

Public reaction was swift. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo condemned the Proud Boys. Its members were banned from Instagram and Facebook. In November, McInnes said he was quitting the group.

Before that, though, he insisted that Antifa members, including one who threw a plastic bottle, had ambushed the Proud Boys that night. Lawyers for several defendants made similar claims during their arraignments.

But security camera footage obtained by The New York Times showed that members of the Proud Boys initiated the encounter by charging at the protesters, who had halted about 100 feet from Park Avenue.

Five defendants have pleaded guilty to charges including riot, disorderly conduct and attempted assault and been sentenced to a conditional discharge and five days of community service.

Another, Kyle Borello, pleaded guilty to riot and attempted assault but will be allowed to withdraw those pleas and plead guilty to disorderly conduct with a sentence of time served if he completes 10 days of community service and has no new arrests for a year.

A seventh defendant, Geoffrey Young, pleaded guilty to riot and attempted assault and was sentenced to 10 months of weekend jail.

The eighth, David Kuriakose, is expected to go to trial in the fall.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/nyregion/proud-boys-nyc-trial.html" id="a4b796dd-4bbc-38a4-aacb-012738a7f8df">The New York Times</a>.

Far-Right Proud Boys Go on Trial, But Anti-fascists Are Boycotting

NEW YORK — The videos that emerged from an Upper East Side event in October showed a disturbing scene: about a dozen men connected to a far-right group called the Proud Boys surrounding and striking a smaller group of protesters, believed to be self-described anti-fascists.

Four of the artists withdrew on Friday; the rebellion continued throughout Saturday as four more followed suit. There are 75 artists and collectives in the Whitney Biennial, which closes Sept. 22.

Since March, there have been protests at the museum and calls from artists and scholars for the museum to remove the trustee, Warren Kanders, who owns a company that distributes law-enforcement equipment, the Safariland Group. Kanders has vigorously defended the company. One artist selected for the Biennial declined to participate before the exhibit opened because of Kanders’ business. Dozens of others called for Kanders to resign, even as they took part.

In a letter to the Whitney Biennial curators that was first reported Friday by Artforum, four artists — Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman and Nicholas Galanin — said they were angry when they learned of Kanders’ ties to Safariland but “were well into fabrication of major pieces” for the Biennial and decided to forge ahead.

“The Museum’s continued failure to respond in any meaningful way to growing pressure from artists and activists has made our participation untenable,” the four wrote in a copy of the letter provided to The New York Times. “The Museum’s inertia has turned the screw, and we refuse further complicity with Kanders and his technologies of violence.”

On Saturday morning, additional artists said they were withdrawing work in solidarity.

Eddie Arroyo and Agustina Woodgate announced through their gallery, Spinello Projects of Miami, that “the request is intended as condemnation of Warren Kanders’ continued presence as Vice Chair of the Board and the Museum’s continued failure to respond in any meaningful way to growing pressure from artists and activists.”

Christine Sun Kim said in an email to The New York Times on Saturday that she, too, had asked for her work to be withdrawn from the Biennial.

“As a mother to a 2-year-old daughter, it terrifies me that my work is currently part of a platform that is now strongly associated with Kanders’ teargas-producing company Safariland,” she wrote to curators. “I do not want her to grow up in a world where free and peaceful expression is countered with means that have left people injured and dead.”

Also asking that work be withdrawn was Forensic Architecture, a London-based research group, which produced a 10-minute video that directly addressed the controversy over Kanders, called “Triple-Chaser.” (It was made with Praxis Films, run by filmmaker Laura Poitras.) The title comes from a type of tear-gas grenade manufactured by Safariland that has allegedly been used against civilians at the United States-Mexico border and elsewhere during protests.

Eyal Weizman, founder and director of Forensic Architecture, said in an interview that the group had written to the curators Saturday to remove “Triple-Chaser” and accompanying films. He added that Forensic Architecture asked that those films be replaced by a statement from the group about its new investigation suggesting that bullets made by a company, Sierra Bullets — which it alleges has ties to Kanders — were used by Israeli forces against civilian protesters in Gaza in 2018.

Kanders declined to comment Friday and Saturday through a spokesman.

In a statement Friday, Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, acknowledged the four artists’ letter to the curators.

“The Whitney respects the opinions of all the artists it exhibits and stands by their right to express themselves freely,” the statement said. “While the Whitney is saddened by this decision, we will of course comply with the artists’ request.”

Tom Eccles, the executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, said that the artists who had asked for their works to be withdrawn appeared to have the upper hand. “The artists won this one,” he said.

“The latest salvo by artists is a surprisingly devastating move at rapid speed,” he added.

The Whitney paid a $1,500 honorarium to participating artists, including six of the artists who have asked to have their work withdrawn. (The museum said the additional payments were underway.) It is not known if any of the eight artists intend to return the fees.

The Biennial, which began as an annual show in 1932 and adopted its current schedule in 1973, has often included politically tinged works. This year’s exhibition addressed, among other topics, NFL players taking a pregame knee to protest police violence against African American men and women; and the 1989 Central Park jogger case, in which a group of black and Latino teenagers were wrongly accused and convicted of assaulting and raping a white woman.

The last time work was publicly withdrawn from a Biennial was 2014, when the YAMS, a collective of artists, removed their video on race and black identity, contending another project in the show was racially insensitive. In 2017, Dana Schutz’s painting “Open Casket” drew sustained protests for its abstracted portrayal of the corpse of Emmett Till, the black teenager whose lynching in 1955 helped spur the civil rights movement. The work, however, remained on view.

Friday’s letter from the four artists withdrawing their work came on the heels of an essay, “The Tear Gas Biennial,” in Artforum two days earlier that called on artists to boycott the exhibition.

The museum said it had reached out to artists over their requests to remove works, among them a large-scale sculpture by Eisenman called “Procession,” which sprawls across the sixth-floor terrace. Also outside on the fifth floor is a video-viewing station by Bennani called “Mission Teens,” which follows a group of teenage schoolgirls in Rabat, Morocco.

Some Biennial artists said Saturday that they respect the decision by fellow artists to withdraw from the exhibition but wanted their work to remain in the Whitney.

Sofía Gallisá Muriente of San Juan said in an email that her work addresses the “colonialism of Puerto Rico” and that she believes “in the power and importance of that piece to speak to our current political situation.”

Another artist, Brendan Fernandes, who created a sculptural installation animated at times by dancers, said his work “is a form of protest within the system.” He added, “The institution will only change when you’re in it.”

Attention was focused on Kanders late last year, when the art website Hyperallergic published photos showing metal canisters marked with Safariland’s name. The canisters were said to have been found where U.S. authorities used tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants running toward a crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego.

Many Whitney employees signed a letter expressing dismay. Kanders replied with a letter expressing pride in Safariland, which also sells protective suits and armor, adding that the company plays no role in deciding how its products are used.

In a letter last winter to staff members and trustees, Weinberg wrote that the museum has “a critical and urgent” role in recognizing “unheard and unwanted voices” but added that it “cannot right all the ills of an unjust world.”

And about two weeks before the Biennial opened in mid-May, roughly two-thirds of the 75 participating artists and collectives added their names to a letter urging the museum to remove Kanders from his position as vice chairman of the board.

On the opening night of the Biennial, protesters draped a black banner reading “When We Breathe We Breathe Together” from an upper floor of the museum. Later they marched to Kanders’ home in Greenwich Village, taking with them a rolling installation in the form of a 5-foot-tall silver cylinder emblazoned with the words “tear gas.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/arts/whitney-biennial-tear-gas-protest.html" id="80f7cdec-5ce4-3cdc-a3df-5c2f08dac2ab">The New York Times</a>.

Artists Pull Work From Whitney Biennial In Protest of Its Board

NEW YORK — Eight artists have asked the Whitney Museum of American Art to remove their works from this year’s Biennial, citing what they describe as the museum’s lack of response to calls for the resignation of a board member with ties to the sale of military supplies, including tear gas.

Kanders declined to comment Friday through a spokesman and did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment Saturday.

Sofía Gallisá Muriente of San Juan said her work addresses the “colonialism of Puerto Rico,” and that she believes “in the power and importance of that piece to speak to our current political situation,” she wrote in an email.

Brendan Fernandes, who created a sculptural installation animated at times by dancers, said, “My work is a form of protest within the system.” He added, “The institution will only change when you’re in it.”

And about two weeks before the Biennial opened in mid-May, roughly two-thirds of the 75 participating artists and collectives added their names to a letter written by academics and critics that urged the museum to remove Kanders from his position as vice chairman of the board.

NEW YORK — Eight artists have asked the Whitney Museum of American Art to remove their works from this year’s Biennial, citing what they describe as the museum’s lack of response to calls for the resignation of a board member with ties to the sale of military supplies, including tear gas. Four of the artists withdrew on Friday; four more followed on Saturday. There are 75 artists and collectives in the Whitney Biennial, which closes Sept. 22.

Since March, there have been protests at the museum and calls from artists and scholars for the museum to remove the trustee, Warren Kanders, who owns a company that distributes law-enforcement equipment, the Safariland Group. Kanders has vigorously defended the group, but one artist selected for the Biennial declined to participate before the exhibit opened because of Kanders’ business. Dozens of others called for Kanders to resign, even as they took part.

In a letter to the Whitney Biennial curators that was first reported Friday by Artforum, four artists — Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman and Nicholas Galanin — said they were angry when they learned of Kanders’ ties to Safariland, but “were well into fabrication of major pieces” for the Biennial and decided to forge ahead.

“The Museum’s continued failure to respond in any meaningful way to growing pressure from artists and activists has made our participation untenable,” the four wrote. “The Museum’s inertia has turned the screw, and we refuse further complicity with Kanders and his technologies of violence.”

On Saturday, additional artists said they were withdrawing work in solidarity.

Eddie Arroyo and Agustina Woodgate announced through their gallery, Spinello Projects of Miami, that “the request is intended as condemnation of Warren Kanders’ continued presence as Vice Chair of the Board and the Museum’s continued failure to respond in any meaningful way to growing pressure from artists and activists.” Christine Sun Kim said in an email to The New York Times that she, too, had asked for her work to be withdrawn from the Biennial.

Also asking that work be withdrawn was Forensic Architecture, a London-based research group, which produced a 10-minute video that directly addressed the controversy over Kanders, called “Triple-Chaser.” (It was made with Praxis Films, run by filmmaker Laura Poitras.)

Kanders declined to comment Friday through a spokesman, who did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment Saturday.

There are 75 artists in the Whitney Biennial, which is due to close Sept. 22.

“The Whitney respects the opinions of all the artists it exhibits and stands by their right to express themselves freely,” Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, wrote in a statement Friday.

NEW YORK — Eight artists have asked the Whitney Museum of American Art to remove their works from this year’s Biennial, citing what they describe as the museum’s lack of response to calls for the resignation of a board member with ties to the sale of military supplies, including tear gas. Four of the artists withdrew Friday; four more followed Saturday.

The Whitney paid a $1,500 honorarium to participating artists, including six of the artists who have asked to have their work withdrawn. (The museum said the two additional payments were underway.) It is not known if any of the eight intend to return the fees.

Friday’s letter from the four artists withdrawing their work came on the heels of an essay, “The Tear Gas Biennial,” in Artforum which called on artists to boycott the exhibition.

In a written statement Friday, Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, acknowledged the four artists’ letter to the curators.

Late last year, the art publication Hyperallergic published photos showing metal canisters marked with the Safariland name, which were said to have been found at a site where U.S. authorities used tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants who were running toward a crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego.

Whitney employees signed a letter expressing dismay at the tear-gas connection. Kanders replied with a letter of his own expressing pride in Safariland, which also sells protective suits and armor, adding that the company plays no role in deciding how its products are used.

NEW YORK — Eight artists have asked the Whitney Museum of American Art to remove their works from this year’s Biennial, citing what they describe as the museum’s lack of response to calls for the resignation of a board member with ties to the sale of military supplies, including tear gas. Four of the artists withdrew on Friday; four more followed on Saturday. There are 75 artists in the Whitney Biennial, which is due to close Sept. 22.

In a letter to the Whitney Biennial curators that was first reported Friday by Artforum, the four artists, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman and Nicholas Galanin, said they were angry when they learned of Kanders’ ties to Safariland but “were well into fabrication of major pieces” for the Biennial and decided to forge ahead.

The letter from the artists came two months before the Biennial was scheduled to close on Sept. 22, and two days after Artforum published an essay by artist Hannah Black and writers Ciarán Finlayson and Tobi Haslett titled “The Tear Gas Biennial,” which called for artists to boycott the exhibition.

In a written statement Friday, Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, acknowledged the artists’ letter to the curators.

Kanders, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

The museum said it had reached out to artists over their requests to remove works, among them a large-scale sculpture by Eisenman called “Procession,” which sprawls across the sixth-floor terrace. Also outside on the fifth floor is a “video viewing” station by Bennani called “Mission Teens,” which follows a group of teenage schoolgirls in Rabat, Morocco.

The Biennial curators chose to include a 10-minute video called “Triple-Chaser” by London-based activist collective Forensic Architecture with Praxis Films, which is run by filmmaker Laura Poitras. The piece addresses the controversy over Kanders and was named after a type of tear-gas grenade manufactured by Safariland that has allegedly been used against civilians at the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere.

Late last year, the art publication Hyperallergic published photos showing metal canisters marked with the company’s name, which were said to have been found at a site where U.S. authorities used tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants who were running toward a crossing from Tijuana to San Diego.

Whitney employees signed a letter expressing dismay at the tear-gas connection. Kanders replied with a letter of his own expressing pride in Safariland, which also sells protective suits and armor, and adding that the company plays no role in deciding how its products are used.

Four Artists Withdraw From Whitney Biennial Over Board Member's Ties to Tear Gas

Four artists have asked the Whitney Museum of American Art to remove their works from this year’s Biennial, citing what they describe as the museum’s lack of response to calls for the resignation of a board member with ties to the sale of military supplies, including tear gas.

The witness, who was identified in court only as Sylvie and who testified for several hours, described being recruited by a “master,” feeling compelled to allow the leader of the group, Keith Raniere, to perform oral sex on her and narrowly avoiding being branded with his initials.

Raniere, 58, who has been indicted on several charges, including racketeering conspiracy, extortion, forced labor and sex trafficking, co-founded Nxivm (pronounced Nex-e-um) as a self-help organization in the 1990s. Prosecutors, however, have said that he used the organization to exert control over the lives of his followers, including women who joined a clandestine sorority — known as DOS — within the group.

Women who joined that group were referred to as “slaves” and were obliged to turn over to other members, known as “masters,” compromising or embarrassing material. This “collateral” would ensure their unquestioning compliance.

Sylvie said that soon after joining DOS, she was directed by her “master,” Monica Duran, to ask Raniere to photograph her and “go along with whatever else happened.”

Sylvie said that she met Raniere inside a house where he told her to undress. He then performed oral sex on her. Even though she did not want any sexual contact with him, she testified that she felt powerless to object, adding, “That was a command from my master and that was my role as a slave.”

After the oral sex, Sylvie said that Raniere told her, “Now you’re part of the inner circle.”

“All around that time I felt so much shame about this cult thing,” she testified, her voice breaking. “Everything was just lies and deceit and darkness.”

Sylvie, who grew up in Britain, came to the United States when she was 18 and lived on a farm where she took care of horses belonging to Clare Bronfman, the Seagram’s liquor heiress who was a high-ranking member of Nxivm.

Over the next decade, the group exerted a pull on her, according to her testimony. At one point, she said, Raniere suggested she leave a job she had obtained with Goldman Sachs. Bronfman also told her she would have to quit a running club she was part of.

Sylvie testified that she joined a Nxivm-related group called Jness that she said espoused, among other things, that women were victimizers who liked to pose as victims.

“I started to hate the fact that I was a woman,” she said.

By the time Sylvie was invited to join DOS — the initials are an acronym for a Latin phrase that roughly translates to “Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions” — she was eager to join, she testified. She thought it might help her improve as a person, she said, even though she had no idea what being part of the group would entail.

She said she provided collateral in the form of a letter where she claimed to her parents that she was a prostitute.

In her roughly two years with DOS, Sylvie said, she followed any directive given to her by Duran, including the order to recruit “slaves” of her own and obtain collateral from them. She was also compelled by Duran, she said, to provide additional collateral of her own, including a letter that gave Duran the power to say whether or not Sylvie could have children.

Duran directed Sylvie to walk her dog, pick up her prescriptions and do her grocery shopping, she testified. She said Duran also gave her a necklace called a “dog collar” that was meant to symbolize their relationship and came with what was supposed to be an unbreakable clasp.

At a certain point, Sylvie said, she was told that other DOS members were being branded with Raniere’s initials and she heard that some were being struck with paddles. Newspaper stories and blog posts about the group began to appear and DOS’s activities seemed to slow down as a result.

Sylvie’s branding, which she said was in the process of being scheduled, never took place.

Raniere began Nxivm in the 1990s in an Albany, New York, suburb, offering workshops and promising to teach participants the way to greater fulfillment. About 16,000 people took Nxivm courses, paying thousands of dollars apiece.

Five women who were charged alongside him have pleaded guilty, leaving Raniere to stand trial alone. High-profile acolytes of Raniere included Bronfman and Allison Mack, an actress known for her role in the television series “Smallville.”

Mack, one of the women who was charged as a co-defendant and has pleaded guilty, recruited other women into DOS, prosecutors have said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/nyregion/nxivm-slave-trial.html" id="48f0a46d-6b10-3989-a9a3-93dc9dc802d8">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — A former member of the so-called sex cult Nxivm on Wednesday gave the first detailed description of the day-to-day life of a “slave” in an ultrasecret society within the group, saying that “everything was just lies and deceit and darkness.”

Nxivm: Daily Life of 'Slave' Detailed by Former Member of Sex Cult

But a state court judge in Manhattan ruled Friday that hearings to determine what evidence of uncharged crimes might be allowed at trial would take place in a sealed courtroom with the public and the press excluded.

The ruling by Justice James Burke in state Supreme Court meant the list of other witnesses prosecutors want to call to testify against Weinstein — and what they might say — will remain secret a little longer, perhaps until his trial starts Sept. 9.

Both the prosecution and the defense had asked for the hearing to be held behind closed doors, arguing that allowing it to be public could make it harder to find an impartial jury. Burke agreed with them, ruling this month that closing the courtroom was “the only means available to avoid tainting the jury pool.”

Still, before the hearing started Friday, a lawyer for several news organizations, including The New York Times, argued that access to judicial proceedings and records is protected by the First Amendment. The lawyer, Robert Balin, urged Burke to unseal all court filings in the case and allow the press and the public to attend.

NEW YORK — One of the primary questions hovering over the coming sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein is whether the court will let women aside from the two mentioned in the indictment testify about their experiences with the movie producer.

Colin Moynihan

Articles written by the author

Marciano Art Foundation Is Accused of Unfair Labor Practices

Marciano Art Foundation Lays Off Employees Trying to Unionize

2 Proud Boys Sentenced to 4 Years in Brawl With Anti-Fascists at Republican Club

Far-Right Leader Is Not at Trial, but He Is Often Invoked by Prosecutors

Far-Right Proud Boys Go on Trial, But Anti-fascists Are Boycotting

Artists Pull Work From Whitney Biennial In Protest of Its Board

Artists Pull Work From Whitney Biennial In Protest of Its Board

Artists Pull Work From Whitney Biennial In Protest of Its Board

Artists Pull Work From Whitney Biennial In Protest of Its Board

Artists Pull Work From Whitney Biennial In Protest of Its Board

Four Artists Withdraw From Whitney Biennial Over Board Member's Ties to Tear Gas

Nxivm: Daily Life of 'Slave' Detailed by Former Member of Sex Cult

Hearing on Trial Witnesses Against Weinstein Will Be Private, Judge Rules

Hearing on Trial Witnesses Against Weinstein Will Be Private, Judge Rules

Several Women Will Testify Against Weinstein. But a Judge Is Keeping the List of Who Secret.

If Trump Can Legally Block Critics on Twitter, Your Local Politician May Do It, Too

American Folk Art Museum Leader Is Stepping Down

To Honor Gift, Public Library Will Add Donor's Name a 6th Time

Met Museum to Return Prize Artifact Because It Was Stolen

Crowd Storms Guggenheim in Protest of Big Pharma