Park Avenue Armory Picks Dick Pics Over Kids.

A nonprofit drowning in public funds hosts a board member's sex show while fighting to evict child cadets. The incentive structure points to the people at the top. Rebecca Robertson runs it. Adam Flatto funds it. Marina Abramović profits from it. $19.8M in public money flows. $19M annual losses continue. Based on New York Post reporting by Gabrielle Fahmy, December 6, 2025

The Park Avenue Armory is not hiding anything anymore. They're just not bothering to hide it well.

Rebecca Robertson runs the nonprofit. She's the President and Executive Producer. Adam Flatto funds it. He's the Co-Chair of the Board and CEO of The Georgetown Company. They oversee a state-owned military building on the Upper East Side that occupies an entire square block. It receives public money. It claims a public mission. And they are openly choosing a board member's explicit sexual performance art over a youth cadet program that has occupied a small room in the building for 150 years.

The numbers make the choice clear.

Since 2020, the Armory has received $19.8 million in public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. In 2023 alone, according to tax filings, they spent $30.4 million on productions. They brought in $11.4 million in revenue. That's a $19 million gap. Someone covered it. Taxpayers did.

Now the Armory is hosting "Balkan Erotic Epic," a four-hour performance by Marina Abramović that features graphic sexual imagery. Twelve-foot penises. Women exposing genitalia to the ground and sky. Men "relentlessly" simulating sex acts for the entire performance. A woman inserting a fish into her body. The Guardian called it incoherent. The Telegraph called it "schlock" and "soft-porn clichés." The Armory CEO Robertson says you'll "r

ethink taboos."

Abramović, 78, has built a career on shock and transgression. In 1974, she stood motionless while strangers assaulted her for six hours. People cut her, sexually abused her, cut her throat, drank her blood. One pointed a loaded gun at her head. This is her brand. The blunter the violation, the more important the statement. She's known as the "grandmother of performance art." Museums compete to host her. Boards fight to have her.

Tickets cost $85. They're already on sale for December 2026.

Who benefits from this choice? Follow the incentive structure. Then follow the names.

Abramović sits on the Armory's board. She has since 2012. Robertson and the board voted to host her show. The nonprofit refuses to disclose whether Abramović is being paid or how much. That's a conflict of interest. The second conflict is that the board is voting to host the work of a sitting board member. The third is that this decision was made while the same nonprofit is fighting to evict a youth cadet program.

The network matters here. Flatto is not just funding the Armory. He's Chairman of the Housing Committee of the Robin Hood Foundation. He sits on the boards of the Wexner Center for the Arts, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, and The World Around. He's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. These are the people who shape what gets funded in New York's cultural sector. They're the gatekeepers. They're also the people who decide what art gets prestige.

Robertson has been the Armory's president since 2006. Before that, she was Executive Director of Lincoln Center Redevelopment, managing a $1.4 billion project. She came from the Shubert Organization, Broadway's largest theater owner. These are the people who control the institutional levers. They decide what gets hosted. What gets money. What gets attention.

Abramović is the third vertex of this triangle. She's the artist. She's the one who benefits directly from the choice to host her show. But she's also connected to something larger.

In 2016, WikiLeaks published emails from John Podesta's account. Podesta was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. The emails included an invitation from Abramović to his brother Tony to a "Spirit Cooking dinner." Abramović claimed the dinner was a normal menu with artistic framing. The conspiracy theories that followed were unhinged. But the factual connection remained. Abramović was close enough to Democratic operatives to invite them to private events.

In 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Abramović as an ambassador to help rebuild schools in Ukraine. She also joined the board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial. These are not random appointments. They're recognitions of institutional access and cultural prestige.

The point is not that Abramović is involved in some hidden cabal. The point is that she operates at a level where her connections matter. Board positions. Presidential appointments. Nonprofit spots. She moves in circles where access and prestige are currency.

Now the Knickerbocker Greys have used a small room in the Armory for more than 150 years. They're children. They're not asking for much. Last year, Governor Hochul signed a bill protecting them. The bill was clear. The nonprofit couldn't evict them. The nonprofit is trying anyway.

Why evict kids from a small room while spending $30 million a year on art productions? Because the incentive structure only points one direction. Board members like Flatto and Robertson benefit from high-profile, controversial art. Board members get cultural prestige. They get to say they hosted a world-famous performance artist. They get their names in the Times. They get to be seen as sophisticated, cutting-edge, important. Public service becomes a constraint, not a purpose. When a public mission and private incentives conflict, the money flows toward the incentives.

The Armory's financials are instructive. They're losing money on purpose. They spent $19 million more than they took in during 2023. Nonprofits aren't supposed to operate this way. They're supposed to be efficient stewards of resources. Instead, the Armory is burning through public grants to fund programming that generates losses. They make up the difference with more public money.

Why would a nonprofit do this? Because the people running it aren't optimizing for financial health. They're optimizing for institutional prestige. Cultural status. The ability to say they hosted a world-famous artist. The ability to sit at galas and talk about unconventional programming. Those are the real incentives. The children are not part of that calculation.

Abramović's history is instructive. In 2017, she collected $2.2 million in donations for a project to convert an upstate building into an art center. She abandoned the project. The money disappeared. The Post ran a front-page exposé called "The Art of the Steal." She faced no legal action. No accountability. No consequences. That's how the system works at this level. Well-connected artists can collect millions, abandon projects, and face nothing. The incentive structure protects them.

The missing accountability is the point. The Armory won't say if Abramović is being paid. Abramović faced no consequences for missing millions. The Armory loses $19 million a year with no consequences. The nonprofit sector operates under an assumption that if you're connected enough, the rules don't apply. The money keeps flowing. The kids get evicted. No one goes to jail.

What's remarkable is the transparency of it. The Armory is hosting explicit sexual content funded by public money. They're doing this while fighting to remove children from the building. They're refusing to disclose payment to a board member. They're operating at a $19 million annual loss. And they're not trying to hide any of it. The tax filings are public. The conflict of interest is obvious. The hypocrisy is blatant.

The board members' names are public. Robertson. Flatto. Abramović. The donors are listed. The grant money is documented. The performance is scheduled. This is not hidden. It's just not being questioned by the people who could question it.

This suggests they don't think anyone will stop them. They probably won't. The Armory has lawyers. It has board members with connections. It has a nonprofit infrastructure designed to move slowly and absorb criticism. The kids will probably get evicted eventually. The show will probably happen. Abramović will probably not disclose her payment. The Armory will probably not improve its financial situation. The public money will probably keep flowing. And the cycle will continue.

The real question is not what the Armory is doing. The real question is why the incentive structure allows it. Why does a nonprofit board get to host a board member's art show without disclosure? Why does a nonprofit lose $19 million a year with no consequences? Why can a well-known artist collect millions and disappear them? Why does a 150-year-old youth program have to fight to keep a small room in a public building?

The answer is the same for all these questions. Accountability requires someone to enforce it. And the people who could enforce it benefit from not doing so. Other nonprofit boards like the incentive structure the way it is. Other boards use their institutions for their members' projects. Other boards lose money on art productions. Other boards host their members' work without disclosure. If you start holding the Armory accountable, you have to start holding all of them accountable.

So no one does. The system continues. The money flows. The kids get evicted. The explicit art gets hosted. The board member's work gets prestige. The board members sit at galas and talk about cultural progress. And everyone involved benefits except the people who were supposed to.

That's not corruption in the traditional sense. No one is stealing cash. But it's corruption of purpose. A public institution has been privatized for the benefit of its board and executives. Public money funds private preferences. The mission is secondary. The network is everything.

Follow the incentives. They explain everything. Then follow the names. They explain who benefits.

DISCLOSURES & SOURCES
Primary Source: New York Post reporting by Gabrielle Fahmy, December 6, 2025
Additional Sources: Park Avenue Armory tax filings 2023; New York State Council on the Arts grant database; NYC Department of Cultural Affairs grant database; Park Avenue Armory Board and Staff listings; Guardian art criticism by Adrian Chiles; Telegraph art criticism by Alastair Sooke; New York Post 2017 investigation "The Art of the Steal"; WikiLeaks Podesta emails 2016; Multiple news sources on Zelensky/Abramović appointment September 2023.
Disclosures: No financial interest in Park Avenue Armory, its board members, Marina Abramović, Adam Flatto, Rebecca Robertson, or the Knickerbocker Greys. This analysis is based on publicly available nonprofit disclosures, news reporting, and public records.