After Basquiat raid, Orlando museum faces crisis of credibility
ORLANDO, Fla. — The Orlando Museum of Art no longer resembles the active crime scene it was in June, when agents from the FBI’s art crime team raided the museum and seized its marquee exhibition: 25 paintings attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat but whose authenticity was questioned in an FBI affidavit that detailed a nine-year criminal investigation into the artworks.
A television news helicopter no longer buzzes overhead while broadcasters in the sun-baked parking lot muse about the fate of the paintings and their owners, who marketed them to prospective buyers as having an appraised value of $100 million.
Now the museum is hoping to get beyond its role at the center of a headline-grabbing art scandal and is trying to reassure the public, the art world, local officials, donors and its own staff it still has a culturally vital role to play in serving the community.
It is not going to be easy.
The museum has canceled the next three exhibitions planned by its former director, Aaron De Groft, who brought in the Basquiat show but who was fired by the board of trustees four days after the FBI pulled the disputed Basquiats off the walls.
The Basquiat exhibition has been scrubbed from the museum’s website; boxes of the show’s 163-page catalog, as well as piles of museum-branded Basquiat merchandise, have been carted from the gift shop into the museum’s basement, according to several employees with knowledge of the move.
While the FBI’s affidavit cited evidence pointing to possible crimes of conspiracy and wire fraud, it has not filed any charges in the case.
But the philanthropic ground is already shaking. A half-dozen prominent OMA donors are in discussions to shift their financial support to the Rollins Museum of Art, at nearby Rollins College, according to its director, Ena Heller. And one of Orlando’s largest charitable organizations, the Martin Andersen-Gracia Andersen Foundation, told the New York Times it will move its collection of 18th and 19th century American paintings — including works by Robert Henri and John Singer Sargent — from OMA, where they had been on loan for nearly 30 years, to the Rollins. Six of the 22 paintings in the collection will be donated to the Rollins outright.
The foundation’s chair, president and CEO, T. Picton Warlow IV, did not allude to the recent controversy, saying only the Rollins shared his foundation’s educational mission and a desire to reach “a more diverse audience of art enthusiasts in our community.”
Some members of the city’s arts communities — Heller among them — are now publicly calling for the resignation of Cynthia Brumback, chair of OMA’s board.
“This did not begin and end with Aaron De Groft,” Heller said. “He reported to a board that has oversight, that has fiduciary responsibility for that museum.”
Heller cited the FBI’s subpoena sent to OMA on July 27, 2021 — nearly seven months before the exhibition opened — demanding “any and all” communications among the museum’s employees, its board and the owners of the artworks.
“There’s a reckoning that ought to happen there,” the director said. “What happened at the Orlando Museum of Art has put us all back by many years. There are people in the community who are very angry. Rightly so.”
Brumback issued a statement after the FBI raid saying that OMA was “extremely concerned about several issues” with the Basquiat exhibition and “we have launched an official process to address these matters.” Brumback did not respond to requests for comment.
De Groft maintained the paintings were genuine Basquiats at an interview in July at his home here. The New York Times had raised questions about the authenticity of the paintings in February.
This is not the first time the museum has been convulsed by a crisis in recent years. In 2020, OMA fired its previous director, Glen Gentele, who the Orlando Sentinel reported had been accused of widespread workplace harassment and creating what one museum manager called a “toxic culture.” After nine trustees resigned in protest over Gentele’s behavior, the remaining trustees fired Gentele (with a $200,000 severance payment, according to public tax filings). De Groft was hired as director in February 2021.
At the Rollins Museum of Art, plans are underway to break ground next year on a $25 million, 30,000-square-foot building that would showcase art from old masters to cutting-edge contemporary work, including annual spotlights for Florida’s own emerging talent.
Several prominent donors, who have given annual five- and six-figure contributions to OMA, have been in conversations with the Rollins about shifting their financial support there over concerns about the leadership of OMA, according to the donors, who were granted anonymity to describe private conversations.
Heller, the director of the Rollins, said that while she was proud to see local support coalescing for her museum, she took no pleasure in the events at OMA that were alienating its donors.
“It’s not just about the Orlando Museum of Art,” she said. “It’s about our entire community. Museums operate on public trust, and now that trust has been hurt. This is the first time in my 30-year career that several people have come into the museum and the first thing they asked me was, ‘How do you know that art is real?’ ”