Judge dismisses lawsuit against Knight Landesman and Artforum magazine

The lawsuit, filed in October 2017, included accusations that Landesman — a power broker in the art world — had groped, attempted to kiss and sent vulgar messages to the women, and, on occasion, retaliated against them when they spurned his advances. Landesman resigned hours after the lawsuit was filed.

The former employee, Amanda Schmitt — the plaintiff in the case — did not sue for workplace sexual misconduct because the statute of limitations had run out; instead, she brought a retaliation claim against Landesman that alleged he had cornered her at a restaurant in May 2017 and assailed her in front of others for having accused him of harassment.

But in his order filed last month, the judge, Justice Frank Nervo of state Supreme Court in Manhattan, wrote that five years had passed between the time Schmitt had worked for Artforum and when the restaurant episode took place — enough time “to eliminate any nexus between her employment and the alleged acts.” He found that Landesman had spoken in a “purely social setting,” that he was entitled to defend himself and that his statements were not defamatory.

Therefore, Nervo reasoned, Schmitt had failed to “state a cause of action,” and “there was no unlawful, retaliatory act.” He also dismissed a related claim of slander against Landesman and Artforum, as well as ones claiming gross negligence and defamation. The ruling was reported by ARTnews on Thursday afternoon.

Schmitt’s lawyer, Emily Reisbaum, said her team was considering an appeal.

“Our view is that Amanda has already won her case,” she said. “This is a purely legal decision. It takes nothing away from the facts alleged and shown in our complaint: Knight Landesman was a serial predatory harasser harbored by Artforum.”

A lawyer for Landesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening. Attempts to reach Landesman were not successful.

In a statement, Artforum’s three publishers said: “While the claims against Artforum have been dismissed, we remain firm in our commitment to maintain a safe and equitable workplace for our employees and associates.”

For decades, Landesman, 68, had been a pillar of the international art scene, a man-about-town known from the galleries of Manhattan to the Art Basel fair in Switzerland for his primary-colored suits and deep connections in the industry. The brother of renowned Broadway producer Rocco Landesman, he started at Artforum in the 1980s and had run the magazine with his three co-publishers, Anthony Korner, Charles Guarino and Danielle McConnell, until his resignation. It came just weeks after The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles describing decades of sexual predations by film producer Harvey Weinstein, a catalyst for the #MeToo movement.

Schmitt, a New York curator, started working at Artforum in 2009 when she was 21. Shortly after she took the job, the lawsuit contended, Landesman “singled her out for unwelcome sexual attention,” subjecting her to questions about her sex life while “touching her, uninvited, on her hips, shoulders, buttocks, hands and neck.”

Schmitt left Artforum in August 2012, but two weeks later, after she had started a new job in sales, Landesman sent her an email in which he praised “brown nosing” as a sales technique before veering off into a different — and sexually explicit — description of the practice, according to the lawsuit. Not long after, Landesman invited Schmitt to tea and grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to kiss her, it stated.

Although Schmitt tried to cut off contact, Landesman continued sending sexually explicit notes, she contended.

In June 2016, Schmitt sent Landesman a text message saying: “You have been sexually harassing me since 2012 and continue to do so. I want it to stop.” Landesman wrote back promising “professionalism in the future,” according to the lawsuit. Schmitt also met with two of Artforum’s other publishers, McConnell and Guarino, showing them some of the messages Landesman had sent. And on June 15, 2016, Guarino sent Schmitt an email promising “he was taking action to ensure that whatever may have transpired never happens again.”

According to the lawsuit, however, Landesman continued sending messages, and Artforum stopped inviting Schmitt to its events. In her lawsuit, Schmitt brought a claim against the magazine for having breached its promise, but Nervo dismissed the claim.

Then in May 2017, the lawsuit said, Landesman accosted Schmitt at a restaurant while she was eating with her romantic partner and an art critic. Sitting at the table uninvited, Landesman claimed that Schmitt had “unfairly accused” him of harassment and demanded she discuss it with him in front of her guests, the lawsuit contended. Schmitt walked off but then returned and “listed for Landesman his many acts of harassment.”

Reisbaum noted that Landesman had continued to work at Artforum for months “after we made our allegations privately.”

“It was only after we made out allegations public that Landesman resigned,” she said, “and still, Artforum denied the gravity of the situation.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.