Starting A Dream Job in the Pandemic

New leaders at three Western Canadian galleries share their challenges and triumphs.

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Leading a major public art gallery is a dream job that can influence the trajectory of the country’s visual culture. B­ut the role of director also comes with many challenges. Never has this been truer than during the pandemic, when the demands of an already complex job have gone viral. Three large Western Canadian institutions have hired new directors during the pandemic – Anthony Kiendl at the Vancouver Art Gallery, John Hampton at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, and Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, who are sharing the top job at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon. Galleries West interviewed them in recent days, asking about their challenges and triumphs, the lessons learned, and how they are leading their teams through the ongoing public health crisis. 

ANTHONY KIENDL, Executive Director and CEO, Vancouver Art Gallery

Anthony Kiendl started work at the Vancouver Art Gallery in August 2020 and says he’s thrilled to be at the helm in a city he loves. But he readily acknowledges how difficult the last 16 months have been. “This is a very challenging job,” he says. “And this has been a very challenging time.”

His advice to anyone taking on a leadership role during the pandemic? “Spend a lot of time listening. My first 12 months here, I was mostly listening. Listen, be flexible, be open to change and take care of your own health.” He also suggests developing perspective. “These jobs can take everything out of an individual,” he says, noting the need for personal boundaries and work-life balance. “While I love this job and I dedicate most of my time to it, it’s not everything.”

Momentum has built this fall with major announcements, including a $100-million donation from developer Michael Audain for the gallery’s new building in downtown Vancouver. Kiendl says an application for a development permit has been filed at city hall, and it will now make its way through the approval process, along with a final push on fundraising. He thinks it’s unlikely ground will be broken before 2023, but points to the project – which had recent design input from Indigenous artists – as a highlight.

There have been other more sobering realities. During the pandemic, the gallery’s earned revenue dropped by 75 per cent, he says. That goes hand in hand with attendance figures, which declined by as much as 80 per cent due to stay-at-home mandates and people’s anxiety about contagion. 

Visitor numbers began to recover in August and are now slightly better than forecast at about 40 per cent of normal, he says. In part, that’s due to the popularity of the Yoko Ono exhibition, Growing Freedom, which runs until May 1. The resumption of travel is another factor, as more than half the gallery’s visitors before the pandemic were tourists. 

Now, with the new Omicron COVID-19 variant on the horizon, Kiendl is feeling both anxiety and cautious optimism as he looks ahead to January. He hopes to boost hours for employees, saying he has felt torn by wanting to support a return to full-time hours but hasn’t had the revenue. “The hardest thing is seeing the impact on staff,” he says. “They’ve all made an enormous contribution by reducing their hours, by 20 per cent for the most part.”

The gallery ended its June 30 fiscal year-end with a small budgetary surplus of $500,000 and is chipping away at an accumulated pre-pandemic deficit of $2 million, he says. Exhibitions were postponed, while others were extended to stretch the budget. Aid from federal and provincial pandemic support programs have been a critical offset for lost revenue.

Kiendl, who has worked in leadership roles at other galleries across Canada, sees a silver lining to the pandemic in the general openness to change that has arisen, particularly on social justice issues. While discussions were underway before the pandemic, he thinks there’s now a greater appetite for action. “That’s meant being able to announce change within a lot faster,” he says.

New strategic priorities, which include honouring Indigenous culture, are in place, and he also points to improvements in ticketing and the membership program, as well as development of a new database for the collection. “Maybe they’re quieter, in the background,” he says, “but there has been dramatic change in almost every aspect of what we do at the gallery.” 

Next year’s exhibitions are also being planned. The Imitation Game, which opens March 5, will consider the impact of artificial intelligence on the production of art and design over the past decade. As well, the gallery will host the McMichael’s popular touring show, Uninvited, which considers the work of female contemporaries of the Group of Seven. 

AILEEN BURNS & JOHAN LUNDH, Co-Executive Directors and CEOs, Remai Modern

Remai Modern in Saskatoon has an unusual leadership model – two co-directors who share both the job and their personal lives. 

Aileen Burns, a Canadian, and Johan Lundh, from Sweden, joined the gallery in the summer of 2020, following the resignation of Gregory Burke, who oversaw the Remai’s opening in 2017. They relocated from New Zealand, where they headed the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Len Lye Centre, a contemporary space in New Plymouth, a city of almost 60,000. 

They say serving in leadership roles at galleries and museums on three continents over the last decade has made them adaptable and self-sufficient. But moving their family – which includes their young daughter, Hilma – after spending their first lockdown working from a cottage in New Zealand has been the biggest challenge over the last 18 months. “It’s hard to even begin to describe how tough it was, yet we don’t have any regrets,” says Lundh.

Sharing a job can be complicated, and there’s even more to navigate when you are also a couple. “We do not have, nor do we strive for that elusive work-life balance,” says Burns. “Each day, and each week, we put our responsibilities together like pieces of a puzzle. We’ve built a life in which our responsibilities to our work, our child and each other are so enmeshed that it is nearly impossible to imagine one without the other.”

The Remai has stayed open through much of the pandemic. It maintained staffing levels, completed a strategic plan, hired Michelle Jacques as chief curator, and had break-even budgets in 2020 and 2021, they say. The Remai did not qualify for the federal wage subsidy as it’s a controlled corporation with the City of Saskatoon but did receive other government pandemic funding. Still, it had to trim its budget by 11 per cent. “The nimble thinking of staff, extraordinary generosity of key donors and creative use of resources has paid off,” says Burns, also noting a one-time contribution of $800,000 from the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation. 

The gallery hosted 10 exhibitions in 2021, including solo shows by Canadian artists Sarah Cwynar and Zachari Logan, as well as Post Commodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective with a shared Indigenous lens. Attendance was slower in the early part of the year but returned to pre-pandemic levels over the summer, says Burns. 

Next year, watch for an exhibition line-up that includes Death and Furniture, which brings together works from across Canadian artist Ken Lum’s 40-year career. It opens Feb. 12.

Burns and Lundh anticipate a slow return next year to large revenue-generating activities, including fundraisers, although they remain aware of evolving threats from the pandemic. 

“We’ve built a conservative model that slowly increases those revenue streams as we anticipate great potential for gathering in big groups at Remai Modern,” says Burns. “However, this pandemic is unpredictable. We need to remain nimble and adjust as necessary throughout the year to keep our staff and visitors safe, connect communities with art, and balance the budget.”

What advice do they offer to cultural administrators taking on new jobs in troubled times? “We would suggest that people starting leadership roles in a pandemic do whatever they can to connect with the team, stakeholders and community even if the conditions aren’t ideal,” says Burns. “Masks and screens make real personal connections harder to form, but they ​are the foundation of any movement forward.”

JOHN HAMPTON, Executive Director and CEO, MacKenzie Art Gallery

John Hampton became the director of Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery early this year, but he has worked at the gallery since 2018. That included serving as the interim director after his predecessor, Anthony Kiendl, left to take the reins at the Vancouver Art Gallery. 

“It is a very exciting, rich and rewarding role to play,” says Hampton. “It’s also very humbling and comes with a lot of responsibility.”

Hampton has the added pressure of being the first Indigenous director of a major public gallery in Canada. He is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, with a reservation in Oklahoma, although his homeland is in the southeastern United States. He grew up in Regina, after his father, Eber Hampton, took a job as president of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, now First Nations University. 

Hampton sees these challenging times as both a blessing and a curse. “In one way, everything has been upturned, so you have to rethink everything. That’s the curse. But the blessing is also that that you get to rethink everything.” 

He says change is happening at galleries at an accelerated pace that reflects broader social trends, such as shifts in workplace culture. The MacKenzie has introduced a new stream of training that tackles how staff relate to each other and is also working to create safe and welcoming spaces for diverse communities using principles of trauma-informed care.

The gallery is also demonstrating its ethical responsibility for the repatriation of stolen artifacts. An initial effort has seen a statue of the Hindu goddess Annapurna returned to a temple on the Ganges. “There’s been a reckoning brewing around museum and gallery collections and who has the right to hold cultural property,” says Hampton, noting a shift in attitudes even over the last year. “There’s an expectation for accountability. This has gone from being a kind gesture to being a necessary one. It’s interesting to see that shift happening inside our institution.”

Attendance is rebuilding after the gallery’s second pandemic closure, but it is only about half of normal, he says. Free admission days that used to attract 1,200 people are now seeing only about 300, as locals remain cautious about large indoor gatherings. Online engagement, however, remains strong.

Financially, the pandemic led to a “drastic drop” in earned revenue from fundraisers, gift shop sales, space rentals and the like. But, overall, he says the gallery is “neither suffering nor thriving” as lower earned revenue has been offset by government pandemic funding and wage subsidies, as well as the gallery’s endowment fund.

Hampton says the hardest thing about stepping into the top job is figuring out how to best support people – whether artists, staff or community members. But even worse, he says, is when meeting people’s needs is outside the gallery’s capacity. “It has been a very difficult two years for almost everybody,” he says. “Having two years of this sustained crisis mode, it’s a lot for people to deal with.” 

Programming is a bright spot for Hampton. A show by the late Norval Morrisseau is on view until April 3. He mentions Radical Stitch, an exhibition of beadworks by 45 artists from across Turtle Island that opens April 30. Conceptions of White, which maps histories and narratives around the construction of white identity, will open in August. There are also shows by Faye HeavyShield, a Kainai-Blood sculptor and installation artist, and Stephanie Comilang, winner of the 2019 Sobey Art Award.

Despite the many challenges the last year has brought, Hampton concludes on a hopeful note. “I feel that there’s a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability that we’re facing, but I do feel excited about where we’re going as a culture. In fact, I feel optimistic about a rebirth.” ■  

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