Jack Lang, then president of the Arab World Institute, and Morocco's King Mohammed VI during a visit to the museum in Paris, February 17, 2016. GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP
Morocco was Jack Lang's final destination as president of the Arab World Institute (IMA). From Wednesday, February 4, to Saturday, February 7, the former French culture minister was in Marrakech with his wife, Monique, officially to attend a contemporary art fair. There, the 86-year-old learned on Friday that French prosecutors had opened an investigation for "aggravated money laundering of tax fraud" regarding his financial ties with Jeffrey Epstein. Upon his return to Paris the next day, Lang announced his resignation.
After the publication of millions of documents by US authorities and the revelation of his correspondence with the American sex offender on January 30, the Moroccan art world had been abuzz with speculation about Lang's future. "Everyone dreads running into him," said a gallery owner in Marrakech on Friday. Even the painter and president of the National Foundation of Moroccan Museums, Mehdi Qotbi, whom Lang had known since the early 1980s and worked closely with for over a decade, declined to comment on his departure, simply stating that he worked "with institutions, not individuals."
