The Newport Art Museum (NAM) has been left with no staff curators after it eliminated four positions this month, including its entire three-person curatorial team and a museum experience staff member, as first reported by Go Local Prov News and confirmed to Hyperallergic by a museum spokesperson.
Among the positions eliminated were the chief curator, curatorial fellow, and preparator, which will be replaced with a “guest curator approach,” Newport Art Museum Board Chair Ellie Harrison Voorhes told Hyperallergic. Vorhees shared that the museum has two priorities: “continuing to showcase a diverse set of viewpoints and exhibits, including beginning to display our world-class collection, and continuing to build financial and operational efficiency for the museum.”
“We adopted a new direction that will continue to ensure an exceptional and inclusive museum experience for everyone,” Voorhes said.
The move has been met with mixed responses. A spokesperson for Independent Curators International (ICI), which provides development opportunities for curatorial contractors and support for traveling exhibitions, told Hyperallergic that while guest curators can offer new and important perspectives to museums on a limited-term contract, they are not meant to replace the expertise of staff curators.
“Curating is a collaborative field, and it’s actually critical, in order for guest curators to be best supported, for them to work in partnership with an institution’s full-time staff and be integrated into the team,” an ICI spokesperson wrote in an email to Hyperallergic.
NAM reported an almost $600,000 deficit in 2022 according to tax filings in 2023 accessible via ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. The museum’s only profitable year since 2011 was in 2016, when the museum received a $5.2 million contribution.
Before the museum decided to eliminate staff, resignations over workplace culture had already begun. Former Director of Visitor Services and Community Engagement Cristin Searles Bilodeau told Hyperallergic that she resigned on July 26 and left on August 2, two days before the curatorial team was let go, telling NAM Executive Director Danielle Ogden and the Human Resources department that she would vacate her position on account of untenable working conditions brought about by an “increasingly stressful, fraught, and unhealthy” work environment.
Bilodeau’s position dealt with the museum’s DEI initiatives and has not been filled since she left. Within 10 days of her stepping down, the museum lost an additional six employees: After her resignation and the dismissal of the curatorial staff and one patron-facing employee, two members of the Museum Experience Staff quit. The wave of departures represents nearly half of the museum’s staff.
Former Preparator Danny Lulu, Bilodeau, and two former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation, told Hyperallergic that the work environment at NMA was filled with “anxiety” and “paranoia.”
A spokesperson for NAM declined to comment on these claims.
Leading up to the cuts, former staff told Hyperallergic that exhibitions were gradually placed out of the hands of the curatorial staff and into the hands of Executive Director Ogden and Director of Advancement Emeline McKeown.
Several former employees also said that the museum hosted a pop-up artwork sale for the art collective ZDS Creative as well as a museum fundraiser in its central galleries, creating confusion among patrons. “Dozens of works were placed on easels in front of collection work, with price tags affixed to them,” Lulu told Hyperallergic.
A spokesperson for NAM told Hyperallergic that the museum recently opened up its gift shop to sell works by local artists, but did not comment on the alleged sales of works in its galleries. The for-sale works displayed in front of museum displays are visible in a post on the Newport Museum of Art’s Instagram.
According to Lulu, who hung the show, staff and museum leadership raised ethical concerns over the for-sale exhibition, which was allegedly organized without consultation of the curatorial team. Two former staff members who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed there was an internal debate over the ethics of selling art in the main galleries.
Without a curatorial staff, some employees said they feared commercial pop-up shows would become normalized, straying from the public-interest responsibilities of a nonprofit museum.
The Newport Art Museum is one of 1,113 museums across the United States that are accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). While the organization does not explicitly prohibit members from hosting selling exhibitions, a spokesperson for AAM said museums should be “extremely clear” in communicating to the public that artwork is being sold, and make efforts to distinguish any for-sale work from objects in the museum’s permanent collection.
“The NAM is an art museum with 10+ changing exhibitions a year, and a growing permanent collection that includes two historic buildings, for which the curatorial team provides comprehensive care and stewardship,” Bilodeau told Hyperallergic.
“These are critical responsibilities that, to me, cannot be managed by one registrar and a few guest curators,” she continued. “I find it baffling and regrettable.”
