While the MoMA promises to ‘lead on sustainability’, they have no problem doing business with climate criminals like Henry Kravis who are funding the death and displacement of millions. Henry Kravis, who has his very own gallery at the MoMA, is the co-founder of KKR, a private equity firm funneling tens of billions into oil and gas projects that are threatening our future. KKR is responsible for the massive expansion of racist methane gas projects poisoning black and brown communities in the Gulf South. As activists, artists, and people who want a livable future we are calling one MoMA to cut ties Henry Kravis. Please add complete this form to add yourself as a signer to the letter below.

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An Open Letter to the Museum of Modern Art:

Museums provide a respite from our daily lives, a place of contemplation where we are surrounded by works of art that invite us to open our minds and see the world from different perspectives.

Museums also are bastions of cultural and political power. They define what art is and, by default, who is an artist. In that endeavor, museums define whose rights are valued, and whose can be exploited.  

At this moment, the tipping point of climate catastrophe, the Museum of Modern Art is notable. Profits from Standard Oil are the cornerstone of MoMA’s history and current financial solvency. As many in the Rockefeller family move to put their ill-gotten wealth towards solving climate change and addressing environmental impacts upon Indigenous, Black, Latino, and low-income communities – MoMA continues to embrace and promote individuals who exploit people for their own profits.

Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis have donated millions of dollars to MoMA and Marie-Josée Kravis is currently the Chairperson of the Board of Directors. But philanthropy doesn’t erase the harm caused by their business model. Henry Kravis is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), one of the largest private equity firms in the world.

KKR regularly engages in the extraction of resources and wealth from marginalized communities. The firm’s investments are driving climate change, exploiting workers, exacerbating natural disasters, violating Indigenous rights, and polluting the air, soil, and water of low-income and BIPOC communities. 

For example, KKR is a majority stakeholder in the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, a project on unceded sovereign land that has been the focus of an Indigenous land rights movement for years. The pipeline does not have free prior and informed consent (FPIC) from the Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en, but KKR bought it anyway. Since KKR has taken ownership, there has been excessive use of force against land defenders including militarized police raids.

KKR is also helping fund the massive expansion of methane gas projects in Black and Latino communities on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana and financing the expansion of coal, gas, and diesel plants in the Global South. These are neighborhoods and communities that have endured polluting plants for decades, where generations have suffered the impacts to their air, water, land, and health while Kravis and his partners profit from thousands of miles away.

We live in a time where institutions are being held accountable for their associations with people who are causing harm. By putting the Kravis name up in lights, you are supporting the injustices caused by KKR. We are calling on you to sever ties with this billionaire who is destroying the world. 

MoMA, drop Kravis.