Earlier this year, artist Robert Cenedella filed a federal class action lawsuit against five major American institutions alleging manipulation of the art market. Now, five New York Museums, which Cenedella has accused of being part of a ‘corporate museum cartel’ that only promotes artists within their own collections, are seeking a court dismissal of the case, Artforum reports. The action taken by Cenedella, who filed a suit for $100m in damages, has been described by his lawyer as trying ‘to level the playing field and foster legitimacy and transparency to the art world’. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum have argued that the accusations brought against them are ‘implausible’ and that ‘artificially inflating the market’ would be detrimental to their collections.
4 May 2018