Ahead of the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) annual benefit for its Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center tonight, November 12, about 20 protesters assembled outside the institution to call on the gala’s honoree, Steven Spielberg, to reject the recognition. The protest comes amid growing calls to oust Leon Black from the museum board over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A letter sent to Spielberg by the feminist campaign group We Are UltraViolet, reviewed by Hyperallergic, urges the Academy Award-winning director to boycott MoMA until the institution severs ties with Black and renames the film venue.
“MoMA has benefited so handsomely from Black that they have named the very room you will be honored in, the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center, in his honor,” reads the missive to Spielberg, authored by Elisa Batista, campaign director of UltraViolet. For the past four iterations of the benefit, MoMA has funneled all proceeds into the film center, which was created in 2019 in recognition of a $40 million gift from the private equity tycoon.
“Mr. Spielberg, you do NOT want your legacy connected to accused abuser and Epstein associate Leon Black,” Batista continues.
The letter makes reference to three sexual assault and misconduct accusations brought forth against the billionaire, all of which Black denies. One of the lawsuits was discontinued by the plaintiff, and an earlier lawsuit was dismissed by the court. A third lawsuit was allowed to move forward after a judge imposed a sanction. UltraViolet said it has not received a response from Spielberg’s representatives.
Black left his role as CEO of his private equity firm Apollo Global Management in 2021, when news broke that he paid Epstein $158 million for financial advice from 2012 to 2017, after Epstein’s first conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. Even though he stepped down as MoMA board chairman that same year, after Hyperallergic published an open letter signed by over 150 artists calling for his removal, Black remains a MoMA board trustee.
Public scrutiny of Black intensified in September, after the US House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution to hold the MoMA trustee in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas in an Epstein investigation. This month, Black sued California Representative Robert Garcia for defamation over public comments such as “Leon Black is at the center of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.”
Playwright and theater artist Gracie Gardner, who initially posted an open letter to Spielberg on her Instagram, said she was “amazed” by the public response.
“Steven Spielberg has made his career making stories about the dignity of women and children,” Gardner told Hyperallergic at tonight’s protest. “It’s totally disgusting that he’s accepting an award [at the film center named after Leon Black], who’s currently in contempt of Congress for not producing NDAs and his involvement in the Epstein files.”
Last month, Gardner co-performed a staged reading of former Barclays CEO and JP Morgan executive Jes Staley’s deposition on Epstein to the United States House Oversight Committee in July.
At this evening’s protest, others carried signs pointing to Black’s connections to pro-Israel and Zionist organizations. Black has reportedly donated money to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which denies that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and Birthright Israel, which is accused of serving as a propaganda campaign for the Israeli government.
“I can personally say I’m Jewish and it’s specifically because of my Jewish values that we’re here. Never again means never again for anyone,” one demonstrator, Janet Goodman-Clarke, told Hyperallergic. “Leon Black not only is a Zionist, but he’s also named ad nauseam in the Epstein files.”
MoMA has not replied to Hyperallergic‘s request for comment.
Artists, activists, and Epstein survivors have repeatedly gathered in front of MoMA demanding his ousting. Among those in attendance at today’s action was Katie Fuller, arts educator and founder of the Time and Memory Project, who staged a separate protest calling for Black’s removal in front of the museum with her sister in September.
Last month, Fuller teamed up with Epstein survivors, UltraViolet, and the Epstein-Trump Reading Room, created by the Institute for Primary Facts, to illustrate the extent of Epstein’s network. The free, mobile installation displayed a timeline of President Donald Trump’s relationship with Epstein and contains thousands of books’ worth of the released so-called “Epstein Files,” in which Black was mentioned over 8,500 times.
That protest included Dani Bensky, a dancer, educator, and Epstein survivor from 2004 to 2005. A few weeks after the action, Bensky wrote an op-ed for Hyperallergic condemning Black’s board position as “one of the starkest examples of institutional ignorance — a head-in-the-sand, look-the-other-way mentality that will inevitably give abuse of power a dark corner to grow and fester in.”
Besides his investments in MoMA, Black has held enormous sway in the art world. In a newly released book by William D. Cohan, Black disclosed plans to convert the Woolworth Mansion into a tax-beneficial art foundation, which is expected to house works from his estimated $5 billion art collection, an asset that Epstein helped leverage as bank collateral.
Gardner said she had one simple message for the attendees of tonight’s benefit gala: “If you know, you’re human garbage. And if you didn’t know, you can’t say that after tonight, because we’re out here saying hi to everybody with our signs.”