Two protesters gathered in front of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) today, September 22, calling for the removal of billionaire Leon Black from the museum board. Katie Fuller, founder of the research initiative Time & Memory Project, and her sister, who wished to remain anonymous, urged the disgraced financier’s removal over repeated rape allegations (none have resulted in a conviction) and his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The duo handed out zines detailing the allegations, interrogating Black’s position as a trustee, and ironizing his ownership of a pastel version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (1893). Turning her critique into costume, Fuller protested while wearing a Ghostface mask from the Scream franchise and a pastel blue jumpsuit.
“When I found out Leon Black had been accused of raping a minor and was still a MoMA trustee, I rage screamed into a pillow before realizing I could stage an action,” Fuller told Hyperallergic. The educator and curator closely follows developments in the Epstein files and was particularly incensed when Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche moved Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a minimum-security prison in 2025.
The action comes six days after the US House of Representatives unanimously voted to hold Black in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas in an Epstein investigation. The business mogul has been the subject of escalating protests and legal probes since 2021, when news broke that Black paid Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017 for financial advice, following Epstein’s first conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
MoMA has not responded to Hyperallergic‘s immediate request for comment.
