For months after the FBI raided Orlando Museum of Art over suspected fraudulent art attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat, word from the institution was that things were not as bad as they seemed.
Just six weeks after the raid on June 24, 2022, the then-chairwoman of the board of trustees took to the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial pages to write that “the museum has begun to move beyond recent events and focus on the future.”
Orlando Museum of Art chair: We’re moving forward from embarrassing Basquiat incident | Commentary
Museum officials offered reassurances that the museum was fine financially, that donors and supporters were rallying around it, that being placed on probation with the American Alliance of Museums would be fixed and that its reputation would recover.
But a lawsuit filed last month against former museum director Aaron De Groft and the owners of the art displayed in the ill-fated “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Heroes & Monsters” exhibition paints a different — and far bleaker — picture.
Orlando Museum of Art sues ex-director, others over ‘Basquiat’ art
“It will take OMA decades of work to rebuild its standing, recover donors, and repair the damage Defendants have caused, if doing so is even possible,” the museum wrote in its lawsuit, filed in the state’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, which covers Orange County.
Museum officials declined an interview with the Orlando Sentinel regarding the lawsuit but agreed to receive emailed questions. After spending more than two weeks reviewing the Sentinel’s questions, the museum declined to answer every question seeking to quantify or elaborate on the damages claimed in the suit.
In its return email, the museum responded, “The Museum’s policy is not to comment on active litigation outside of what is publicly filed” to 10 separate questions and “The Museum looks forward to quantifying our damages at the appropriate time within the context of the active litigation,” or a close variant of that statement, to five other inquiries.
That leaves the public waiting for details from the nonprofit until the case goes to court — if it gets that far. De Groft and Pierce O’Donnell, one of the art’s owners and an attorney himself, say the charges are groundless, and they will defend themselves vigorously.
Orlando Museum of Art lawsuit defendant: ‘I intend to be their worst nightmare’
“It’s a misguided effort to cover their tracks,” O’Donnell told the Sentinel in August, promising a “counterpunch” against the legal action, while De Groft characterized the suit as an attempt to “smear” him.
The lawsuit claims that De Groft conspired with the owners to defraud the museum into exhibiting the works, hoping to raise their value, although they should have reasonably known or at least suspected that they had not been painted by Basquiat, a critically acclaimed artist who died in 1988. Michael Barzman, a Los Angeles auctioneer, later told the FBI he helped create some of the paintings in the exhibition and was sentenced to probation, community service and a $500 fine.
The fallout from the exhibition cost the museum “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” first on mounting the exhibition, then on communications and legal services, the lawsuit says. Among the unanswered questions to the museum were requests to determine specifically how much has been spent on such services.
Law firm Akerman is representing the museum in the suit and had previously been engaged to conduct an internal investigation of the museum’s procedures and practices that led to the scandal. The museum would not say if the results of that investigation would be made public, as previously announced, or if the findings were all revealed in the lawsuit’s details.
Tucker/Hall, a crisis-management communications firm based in Tampa, also has been contracted by the museum to deal with the ongoing situation.
The museum referred financial inquiries to publicly available disclosures, but the most current information available is for the fiscal year ending in June 2022 — which reflects the spending and heightened interest in “Heroes & Monsters,” which opened in February that year, but not the after-effects of the exhibit’s abrupt closure.
The museum’s filing with the IRS shows that grants, contributions, program revenue and investment income all increased for the museum from the 2020-21 fiscal year, from about $2.7 million to $4.1 million. Most cultural organizations saw revenue increases after the COVID-19 shutdown and slow recovery.
Expenses, which would include preparation costs for “Heroes & Monsters,” also shot up, however, from about $3 million to $4.3 million.
The filing also shows De Groft received $198,406 in salary and other compensation, noting he was paid “through June 28” — when De Groft was fired after the FBI raid. De Groft was the only museum employee to receive compensation over $100,000.
Orlando Museum of Art’s Basquiat scandal raises issue of trust: ‘Hurting all of us’
The suit also says the museum “lost several longstanding employees in the wake of the scandal surrounding
the Exhibition, which has deeply impacted OMA’s ability to carry out its mission.” The museum would not explain to the Sentinel how its mission has been compromised, though several key departures are known.
Chief curator Hansen Mulford retired this year; Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon is serving as interim head of collections and exhibitions, according to the latest staff list available. The museum website currently doesn’t list employees. The museum also has an interim CEO, Cathryn Mattson, and an interim chief operating officer, Joann Walfish.
One front-line mission-related position listed as vacant is an associate curator for programs and outreach in the education department. David Matteson formerly held a similar position; he is now associate curator of education at the Rollins Museum of Art in Winter Park.
After the Basquiat scandal broke, the Rollins Museum (formerly the Cornell Fine Arts Museum) was the recipient of a long-term loan and gift of paintings previously loaned to Orlando Museum of Art from the Martin Andersen-Gracia Andersen Foundation, a move seemingly acknowledged in the lawsuit’s evaluation how the scandal has influenced supporters.
“The tangible effects of this reputational damage can already be seen in that some donors have transferred their support to other institutions,” it states. “Others are expressing concern about being associated with OMA.”
That reputational damage, for which the museum seeks unspecified compensation in a jury trial, extended to being placed on probation by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Probation is a rare penalty that board chairman Mark Elliott downplayed earlier this year — but is given new weight by the lawsuit, which uses italics to emphasize its point.
Orlando Museum of Art placed on probation but gets high-level support
“The resulting damage to OMA’s reputation cannot be understated — at any given time, fewer than 1% of accredited museums are on probation,” it states. “That is, probation is an extremely serious sanction.”
In a statement this week, Elliott repeated what he told the Sentinel in January: “The Museum has been working with the AAM, and will continue to do so, to remove our probationary status.”
He said the museum was unaware of a timeline to return to good standing with the alliance, but the AAM’s letter informing the museum of its probation — quoted in the lawsuit — sheds light on the national organization’s point of view: “While the museum board is trying to remedy the situation, we see a museum still in turmoil … putting the museum’s operations, funding, reputation, and overall viability at great risk.”
Asked by the Sentinel what steps the museum would take in the near future and over the long term to restore its reputation and standing, Elliott responded with generalities rather than specifics.
“The museum is resilient,” he wrote. “We are focused on the future, on restoring the community’s confidence in us, strengthening our organizational practices, and recalibrating our strategic focus.”
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