Controversies
In December 2011, Louise Blouin Media was sued for defamation in United States district court for a September 16, 2011, article written by Noah Charney on blouinartinfo.com, in which he wrote that a forensic art expert "was part of a family of art forgers, and that he had been planting the forensic evidence into the questionable works himself".
In 2010, an article in the New York Post noted controversy over payments to freelance writers for Blouin's arts publications. One group, WAAANKAA (Writers Angry At Artinfo Not Kidding Around Anymore), demanded back payments of $18,000. In December 2013, Artinfo.com abruptly laid off 26 international employees. The New York Observer posted a 1000-word internal email from Blouin to staff explaining that the move was part of a new direction in which, "One person doing all and not good we need less of one but many more."
In February 2014, the New York Post reported that two former executives were suing Blouin for $250,000 in pay and commissions. In 2016 further reports emerged of the company failing to pay "about 40 journalistic freelancers money... with freelancers owed anywhere from $500 to more than $20,000".
President David Gursky resigned in early 2017, following the departure of editors-in-chief of Modern Painters Scott Indrisek, and "Blouin Lifestyle" Karen Quarles. It was reported that "at some of the publications, staffers began leaving the names of contributing editors off the masthead because it would have been misleading to pretend to have large staffs when many were not getting paid," and that "the work often used generic bylines to obscure the fact that it was being written overseas." In January 21 it was reported that the remaining employees checks were bouncing and that the entire finance department of "one guy based in India... is scrambling to ‘fix’ the problem [by] sending PayPals to people who have no money."
