The Vancouver Artwork Gallery Affiliation introduced on Tuesday (25 March) that Anthony Kiendl, the gallery’s chief govt and director since 2020, has left to “pursue different skilled and private pursuits”.
The tip of Kiendl’s five-year tenure on the helm of the Vancouver Artwork Gallery (VAG) comes on the heels of its leaders scrapping plans for a brand new, Herzog & de Meuron-designed constructing final December. A decade within the planning, the gallery’s new 310,000 sq. ft house was to be constructed on a city-owned property some 500 metres from the VAG’s present location in a historic courthouse constructing. The venture was cancelled after prices ballooned from C$400m ($280m) to C$600m ($420m), however not earlier than C$60m ($42m) had already been invested.
“It was a mutually agreed consequence someday within the making,” Jon Stovell, the chairman of the gallery’s board, tells The Artwork Newspaper. “Anthony had plans of his personal and we had change of course with the brand new constructing—so it appeared like a logical time for a parting of how.”
In a press release, the board praised Kiendl. “Beneath his management, the gallery navigated its method by way of the Covid-19 pandemic, reworked its programming and has grown its donor base, membership and attendance. He has superior Indigenous reconciliation and helped safe lead funding for the gallery’s new house.”
Kiendl inherited the constructing venture from his predecessor, Kathleen Bartels, who stepped down after 18 years on the helm in 2019 following a strike on the gallery and amid ongoing points associated to the brand new gallery venture. Kiendl oversaw a “floor awakening” ceremony on the location within the autumn of 2023, however a yr later work on the location was paused and the bottom was by no means damaged.
Subsequently a brand new plan was hatched to rent a Canadian architectural agency to construct a extra modest constructing on the identical web site. To that finish, 14 corporations have been shortlisted final month, amongst them the Toronto-based agency Hariri Pontarini Architects (which is designing the brand new Marianne and Edward Gibson Artwork Museum at Simon Fraser College) and the Vancouver-based agency Patkau Architects (which designed the Audain Artwork Museum in Whistler).
Stovell says that regardless of the change of management, the brand new constructing venture is “on monitor and schedule”, an architect can be chosen by early June and the board “is in no rush to rent a brand new director”, estimating {that a} new one can be chosen by the tip of the yr. Eva Respini, the gallery’s deputy director and the director of curatorial programmes, and Sirish Rao, the director of public engagement and studying, will function co-interim leaders.
It’s onerous to not see the brand new gallery venture as an albatross across the neck of any potential new director. And with US President Donald Trump’s commerce struggle and different points straining federal coffers, there may be concern that promised authorities cash for cultural initiatives might go elsewhere—to the Division of Nationwide Defence, for instance.
In the meantime, the outstanding Vancouver actual property marketer and collector Bob Rennie—a former chair of the North America Acquisitions Committee on the Tate and present chair of collections on the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, DC—and a longtime critic of the brand new VAG constructing venture, continues to name for an audit.
“Dismissing one particular person doesn’t make up for the truth that C$60m of philanthropic and taxpayer {dollars} was spent with completely nothing to indicate for it,” he says. “On this age of philanthropists questioning each transfer and politicians watching each tax greenback, I don’t perceive why there may be not a full disclosure of the C$60m to allow them to transfer on correctly.” He provides: “Now without end individuals are going to say, ‘Is that this going to be one other VAG fiasco?’ It’s grow to be a poster little one for abuse of funds.”
Stovell says the gallery’s management is “delicate to the truth that there’ s been a disappointment”, including that when planning for a brand new gallery started 14 years in the past, building was cheaper and there was “ a lot of worldwide cash coming into city”. Now, he says, “We’re re-calibrating our response to the occasions we’re in by specializing in the artwork fairly than the constructing.” It might probably nonetheless be lovely, he suggests, however maybe “much less of a press release”.
For his half, Kiendl tells The Artwork Newspaper that “VAG is among the many main artwork museums in North America and is near my coronary heart. I solely have curiosity in it persevering with.” He provides: “We mutually determined to half methods and I’m actually trying ahead to the long run engaged on different skilled and private initiatives.”
Certainly one of these will see him return to the gallery for the 16 April opening of the multi-disciplinary artist Lucy Raven’s Assassin’s Bar, her first complete present in North America. Curated by Kiendl, the exhibition will function video work with sculptural parts delving into narratives of the American West, co-commissioned and collectively acquired by the VAG and the Vega Basis.
