Jay Z came under fire from the art world earlier this week when iconic performance artist Marina Abramovic accused the mogul stiffing her on a promise to donate to her Marina Abramovic Institute. But now it looks like Abramovic is going to have to eat crow because it’s recently been proved that Jay did, in fact, donate to her institution.
As previously reported, Abramovic told Spike magazine that she allowed Jay to use her “The Artist as Present” work as inspiration for his “Picasso Baby” video on the condition that he donate to her institution. However, she claimed that it ended up being a “one-way transaction” and that Jay “just completely used me. And that wasn’t fair.”
However, According to The New York Times, the Marina Abramovic Institute issued a statement on Wednesday, explaining that Jay did donate to them, something which they’ve failed to tell Abramovic over the past two years.
“Marina Abramovic was not informed of Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter’s donation from two years ago when she recently did an interview with Spike magazine in Brazil,” the statement read.
The institution was prompted to make the announcement after Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, a gallerist and art advisor for Jay Z, read his donation receipt over the phone in an interview with Artnet news. “Thank you for your donation,” the receipt read.
The institution went on to apologize to both Jay and Abramovic for the mistake.
“We are sincerely sorry to both Marina Abramovic and Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter for this, and since then we have taken to appropriate actions to reconcile this matter,” the statement read.
Well, this is a hugely embarrassing mistake on the part of Abramovic and her institution and we wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t damage her relationship with Jay.
