New York City Mayor Under Fire for China-Themed Exhibition
By Annette Meier
Portrait of New York mayor ERIC ADAMS at the city’s Fulton Center, 2022. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Following New York mayor Eric Adams’s recent indictment for major federal corruption charges, new reports have emerged alleging that his administration also sought to ingratiate itself with the Chinese government by pitching an exhibition to the Brooklyn Museum on Sun Yat-sen, the provisional first president of the Republic of China.
According to 2,500 pages worth of emails reviewed by the New York-based independent newsrooms The City and Documented, Adams’s office sent in a last-minute request to the Brooklyn Museum in August 2016, to hold a Sun Yat-sen-themed show the following month in the museum’s galleries for European art. The initial request was made by Winnie Greco, Mayor Adams’s director of Asian affairs and top aide, who was in contact with Beijing’s Overseas Chinese History Museum of China and described Sun Yat-sen as the “leader of China’s republican revolution.”
When museum officials refused due to the short notice and the requested exhibition space being occupied, Adams’s longtime advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin reached out to the institution’s director, Anne Pasternak, to “ensure that the museum was fully aware of Borough Hall’s [a Brooklyn landmark] interest in supporting the request.” Pasternak responded that the space requested for the show was unavailable and that “no museum can not [sic] turn around an exhibition in one month. It normally takes at least 2-3 years.” Without approval from the museum, the exhibition was ultimately held on September 7, 2016, at Brooklyn Borough Hall and co-organized by the former Chinese consul general to New York, Qiyue Zhang.
Greco joined city government in 2022 as a senior mayoral advisor, one day after Adams was sworn in as New York’s 110th mayor, and is currently under federal investigation. She reportedly worked as an unpaid volunteer “ambassador” to Adams from 2014 to 2021, when he was Brooklyn’s borough president, but the co-published reports by The City and Documented note that she had an official email address, raising questions about her actual status within the administration.
During her eight-year volunteer role, Greco was also a prolific fundraiser who, despite receiving no income, was reportedly able to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars for Adams’s campaigns. A liaison to the Chinese community both in the US and abroad, she also networked with Chinese government officials and business people to secure meetings and public appearances with Adams, as well as donations.
The mayor has thus far been indicted on five federal charges, including bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign support from foreign nationals. The recent reports have put him and his associates under further scrutiny, raising broader concerns about government officials using art institutions for political, personal, or financial gain.
Annette Meier is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
