The man is suing the museum on the grounds that they did not protect him from groping--sexual assault. 14 years after the fact seems a little late in the day to complain, of course, and thus there seems to be reason to doubt his sincerity. But there might be another way of looking at it.
Just as clothing communicates things to other people, adults being naked outside of specific circumstances (doctor's office, group showers, etc) communicate sexual interest. So the situation is intended to be a sexual one, albeit with some implausible deniability ("This is ART, you fool!"). And if the man and woman are so close to the visitors that one has (remember the social pressure) to make contact with them, this seems a bit like unwanted sexual contact: a sexual assault.
It seems a bit unusual for an "assault-er" to complain about reciprocation. Although active groping does ratchet it up rather more than a notch.
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Meanwhile, I'm reminded of Mr. Phally from The Pilgrim's Regress.
In the state of NY, the (recently extended to 20 years) statute of limitations for such things had been 3 years -- but there was a special law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_Survivors_Act) "to allow alleged victims of sexual offenses for which the statute of limitations has lapsed to file civil suits" The window was 24 November 2022 to 24 November 2023, but in this particular case the defendant MOMA agreed for some reason to accept an extension for this suit.
On September 25 2023, the New York Times had an article detailing all of the steps that the Royal Academy of Arts in London was taking to protect the actors in a re-staging of Marina Abramovic's Imponderabilia, that happened later in the autumn. https://archive.is/luDGu
I suspect our alleged victim saw that article, recalled how his experience was different, and became aware that he had just 60 days before deadline expired -- so his choice was to act now or forfeit the chance.
I'm also seeing that all the principle people who worked on the logistics of that NY MOMA Marina Abramovic retrospective exhibition have left the organization, and most are now not even living in the USA. So MOMA is somewhat blind in mounting a defense here, unless they've records of who exactly was assigned to security of that room for all the times in question, or they surveillance tapes were kept all this time.
That's a plausible reason for waiting. Those statue of limitations are there for good reason--like MoMA not having any evidence left one way or another.
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