Former Chair of National Gallery's Board Calls for "Prompt Appointment" of New Director
Michael Tims (photo courtesy Energy Council)
A former board chairman of the National Gallery of Canada says the federal institution needs the "prompt appointment" of a new director to replace interim director Angela Cassie.
Calgary businessmen Michael Tims, who was board chair from 2012 to 2017, also said the diversity and inclusion program initiated by previous director Sasha Suda and continued by Cassie needs some reworking. The Suda-Cassie program has resulted in considerable layoffs and turmoil.
"Could (and should) more now be done on diversity and inclusion?" Tims said in an email interview. "Of course. But I would suggest framing the next steps in terms of 'rebalancing' and 're-shaping' what the Gallery is doing and avoiding the evocative language that seems to have generated at least some of the adverse reactions. Importantly, the stakeholders and audiences of the Gallery have diverse tastes and interests, and in my view, many of these can be served under a 'big tent' concept."
Tims' comments came after Montreal newspaper Le Devoir published a news story Thursday revealing a letter had been sent in July to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez from a group of donors and gallery trustees, including Tims, stating what kind of director should be hired to replace Suda.
"The best 'next step' would be the prompt appointment of the next director & CEO," Tims said Thursday. "This is a tall order, as the desirable attributes are many, and they are partially summarized in the letter that was sent to the minister by a number of us. Very importantly, the NGC now seems to need a CEO who can warmly and enthusiastically bring people together around the Gallery's very positive mission."
The letter to Rodriguez, according to Le Devoir, suggested a new director should be someone with solid training in art history and the ability to maintain good relations with donors while respecting the gallery's longstanding mandate to develop and maintain a historical and contemporary collection. Cassie has no education or experience in the visual arts. She came to the National Gallery from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
Le Devoir said the signatories to the letter include major art collectors and business people from across Canada, including Michael Audain, Ash Prakash, Ronald Mannix, Michael Tims, Pierre Lassonde, Paul Genest, Don Pether and Michael Adams.
Suda had developed a strategic plan for decolonizing the gallery. Cassie has cited the strategic plan as the reason for the recent forced departures of four senior managers, including deputy director and chief curator, Kitty Scott, and senior Indigenous curator Greg Hill.
Meanwhile, the Ottawa Citizen quoted the current chair of the gallery's board, Françoise Lyon, as saying that Cassie had approached the board about her plan to dismiss the four senior staff members a week before she took action.
“She didn’t have to come to us, but she did," Lyon said Thursday, describing it as an operational decision in which the board does not have the right to interfere. "And her reflex was the right one. It was a touchy and difficult decision. We can't intervene, but we can have a robust discussion about it. We still support her."
All governance rules were followed, including proper documentation, preparation and explanation, added Lyon, who has served as chair since 2017, and was reappointed last May. She also told the Citizen that the the heritage minister's office was informed, but not Rodriguez himself.
Cassie has been under fire in recent weeks following the four dismissals, which also included Stephen Gritt, the director of conservation and technical research, and Denise Siele, senior manager of communications.
Meanwhile, the Association of Contemporary Art Galleries, which represents 45 art dealers across Canada, has also written to Rodriguez to express concern about recent events at the gallery, says the association's executive director Julie Lacroix. The association declined to share the letter.
Their concern centres on a group of seven former senior gallery employees who have written to the minister complaining about the implications of the last round of forced departures.
"We have read in the media some excerpts from the letter of former museum employees who state that 'there is currently only one assistant curator for contemporary art' and 'several key positions are either unstaffed or understaffed,' a statement which leads us to fear for the entire contemporary art ecosystem," Lacroix said in an email to Galleries West.
She said the association's members depend on their links to museums as they work to build the careers of the artists they represent.
"They participate in an ecosystem where museums occupy a central place. The success of artists' careers is measured, among other things, by participation in exhibitions or acquisitions by our major Canadian museums. The dynamism and the influence of our museums impacts artists and galleries as well as all other stakeholders in the visual arts community."
The National Gallery has one of the largest acquisition budgets of any institution in Canada, but with the many staff vacancies it's not clear how many purchases are occurring.
Meanwhile, former museum director Marc Mayer has given an interview to La Presse in which he calls what has happened at the Ottawa gallery he once oversaw as a "coup-d'état."
And Cassie, in the Ottawa Citizen, voiced her own criticisms of previous management regimes, saying the gallery had "never met any of the basic employment equity obligations in terms of representation within the workforce."
"There was never been a permanent Black or racialized curator within the institution. And most of the representation to date within the institution has been in more junior levels of the organization. So what are the barriers that prevent advancement? That’s something we’re looking at."
Among the four people released by Cassie last month was Siele, who is Black. She was hired two years ago as senior communications manager. Siele's LinkedIn account shows she is now working as a consultant for Hill Solutions Public Affairs in Ottawa.
Tims was unhappy with some criticisms that seemed to be directed at Mayer for supposedly failing to make the gallery a more diverse environment.
"As you know, the Canadian and Indigenous galleries were melded into one large, completely reimagined gallery during Marc's tenure; we had the Audain Chair (of Indigenous works) during Marc's tenure, thanks to Michael Audain and his wife, Yoshi … and there were some excellent Indigenous exhibitions at the NGC that were widely acclaimed."
In the Commons, Bloc Quebecois MP Martin Champoux, the vice-chair of the Commons heritage committee, said Wednesday that what's happening at the National Gallery "just doesn't make sense."
"Art is being sidelined in favour of an ideological agenda that has nothing to do with the museum's artistic vocation," he said, quoting Mayer's comments about a coup-d'état. "Art is now a propaganda tool of this government to impose its ideological vision. It's frightening."
Meanwhile, Senator Patricia Bovey, a former director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and a former board member of the National Gallery, added her voice to the call for prompt action to find a new director, advising Rodriguez to immediately set up a search committee.
She told Ottawa reporter Paul Wells, who writes for Substack, that Rodriguez should also meet with the seven former senior employees who sounded the alarm with their letter, and announce publicly that he has done so.
