Aaron Bondaroff has been accused of sexual misconduct by three different women. Bondaroff helped run Supreme’s first store in 1994 and in 2001 launched his own brand, aNYthing. In 2008, he co-founded the Moran Bondaroff Gallery (formerly known as OHWOW) which, among others, represents Daniel Arsham and the estate of Robert Mapplethorpe. The gallery also founded the radio station and clothing brand Know Wave. Following the allegations, Bondaroff has stepped down from his position at Moran Bondaroff.
Canadian singer Dana Wright told artnet news in an interview that she met Bondaroff about four years ago in New York when a mutual friend, Lele Saveri, invited her to be a guest on his radio show on Know Wave, a station founded in 2012 by Moran Bondaroff. Wright later looked Bondaroff up when she was in Los Angeles and they met at his gallery, then called OHWOW.
Wright described it as “The whole thing was very violent”. She was wearing a one-piece bodysuit and claims that he ripped it, shoved his hand down the front, and aggressively groped her. “I tried to grab his arm and he wouldn’t budge. It was rock solid,” she said. He tried to convince her to go back inside the gallery but she refused. He eventually took her home, she said, and when she got out of the car he asked her to promise never to tell anyone what had happened. In exchange, she said, he told her that he’d try to help her professionally.
A female DJ and photographer Musa Alves, told artnet News that she met Bondaroff in 2015 while doing a radio show for Know Wave. They began texting soon after and Bondaroff asked to come over one night. Alves agreed, but when he arrived he repeatedly began kissing her against her will, she said. She suggested they go to a restaurant; he countered with the idea to go to a sex shop and buy some BDSM gear which is a theme in Alves’s artwork, which she frequently posts on Instagram.
A third woman, an artist who asked to stay anonymous gave a similar statement.
In Wright’s Instagram post, which was directly addressed to Bondaroff, she wrote: “[F]or some reason nobody wants to call you out… Because you’re ‘cool’? Well I don’t give a fuck about whatever hipster skater shit you u get into and I never did. This is a message to you. STOP assaulting women and using your lame ass clout to get away with it.”
