The Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) is dropping its lawsuit against the five co-owners of a suite of allegedly forged Jean-Michel Basquiat works. The scandal surrounding the alleged fakes, which were seized in an FBI raid in June 2022, has left the museum in a financially precarious position.
The museum’s board chairman, Mark Elliot, told the Orlando Sentinel that the OMA is shifting its legal focus from the works' consortium of owners to the museum's former director, Aaron De Groft, in an effort to reduce the institution's significant legal costs. The museum filed its lawsuit against De Groft in August 2023, alleging fraud, conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of contract, and seeking unspecified damages.
De Groft is responsible for the now infamous Heroes and Monsters exhibition that featured 25 paint-on-cardboard works initially attributed to Basquiat. De Groft and the paintings’ co-owners continue to insist that the works are authentic. But Michael Barzman, an auctioneer from Los Angeles, has admitted that he had made the works with an accomplice. De Groft was fired shortly after the raid.
De Groft countersued the museum for alleged wrongful termination and defamation, after the museum accused him of attempting to profit from the exhibition of the forgeries.
The details of an internal meeting at the OMA were leaked earlier this month, revealing that the museum is facing a $1m deficit for the current fiscal year. The museum's chief executive Cathryn Mattson said that the museum had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on crisis communications professionals and legal fees, noting that the institution’s reserves “are nearing exhaustion level and that has been our cushion. We have also exhausted our lines of credit and have loan.”
