A nude artist who performed in a Marina Abramovic exhibition is suing New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for allegedly failing to stop visitors from groping him.
John Bonafede claimed he was hired by the museum for the 2010 exhibition Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, for which his job was to stand naked while facing an unclothed woman who stood 18 inches away.
The pair were told to stare forward for 75 minutes at a time, with attendees urged to squeeze between them while moving between galleries.
In a lawsuit filed in New York State court on Monday, Mr Bonafede alleged that while undertaking the role he was assaulted seven times by older men in an “eerily similar” way.
He claimed each man turned sideways to face him, before dropping their hand to “fondle and/or grope” his genitals.
They would then linger “for a moment before moving through into the next gallery room”.
Mr Bonafede has claimed the museum did not put any verbal or written warnings in places to tell attendees not to touch the nude artists.
Museum officials knew the groping was a “pervasive problem”, according to the lawsuit, and failed to “take reasonable corrective action”.