artist who appeared fully nude in museum exhibit , sues MoMA alleging it failed to protect him from sexual assault
A visitor to the Museum of Modern Art squeezes between two nude performers during a Marina Abramovic retrospective in 2010. A different performer in “Imponderabilia,” not pictured, has sued the museum.Credit...Joshua Bright for The New York Time
An artist who appeared nude in a highly publicized piece by famed performance artist Marina Abramović is suing New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) after he said he was sexually assaulted during the 2010 event.
In the lawsuit obtained by CNN, New York artist John Bonafede claims MoMA didn’t do enough to protect him and fellow nude artists from assault. The suit comes almost 14 years after the performances took place. (The New York Adult Survivors Act, which allows victims of alleged sexual assault to sue after the statute of limitations has lapsed, expired in November, but the suit clarifies that the case received an extension.)
Bonafede appeared in the 2010 reenactment of Abramović’s “Imponderabilia,” a piece in which two artists stand fully nude in a narrow doorway as visitors are encouraged to squeeze between the two naked bodies to enter the exhibit.
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Bonafede claims in the lawsuit that when performers were training with Abramović ahead of the 2010 exhibition, they learned she had been assaulted during a previous performance. In her 1974 piece “Rhythm Zero,” the artist had famously allowed audiences to do whatever they wanted with her body along with 72 objects, from roses to nails to a pistol with one bullet, for six hours. Attendees cut off her clothes, sliced her with sharp objects and placed the loaded weapon in her hand, positioning it toward her chest.
Bonafede says in the suit he was made to understand during the training that performers were “expected to ‘tough it out’” regardless of how attendees behaved toward them.
Several “Imponderabilia” performers reported being groped during the 2010 exhibit. One performer told the New York Times in 2010 that a patron had grabbed his rear and told him that he “felt good,” and another told the publication they caught an attendee taking a waist-high photo of performers’ nude bodies.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/style/artist-sues-moma-nude-abramovic-cec/index.html
According to his lawsuit, Mr. Bonafede was sexually assaulted seven times by five museum visitors. He reported four of the individuals to MoMA security, which ejected them from the galleries, the lawsuit said; the fifth assault was directly observed by security.
Mr. Bonafede said in legal filings, however, that MoMA officials “turned a blind eye” to the assaults and created a hostile work environment where performers were expected to submit to the actions of unruly audience members. His lawsuit comes nearly 14 years after the exhibition; New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which gave people an additional window to file sexual misconduct claims, expired in November, but there was an agreement to extend this case.
The 2010 retrospective was one of the most defining museum shows in recent history, helping to further legitimize performance within the art world and turning the Serbian artist into a global celebrity whose tough preparation for the exhibition was memorialized in the 2012 documentary “The Artist Is Present.”
But the exhibition was grueling for many performers. Some participants reported fainting in the galleries, and the museum later shortened their schedules to prevent exhaustion. Others complained that guests were inappropriately touching their bodies and making rude remarks about their appearances.
At the time, MoMA said that it was “well aware of the challenges posed by having nude performers in the galleries,” and that discussions had taken place “to ensure that the performers would be comfortable in the galleries at all times.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/arts/design/moma-lawsuit-nude-artist-marina-abramovic.html
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