Vancouver Art Gallery to make deep cuts to staff, programming as revenue hits 15-year low

Saying the Vancouver Art Gallery has reached a “critical inflection point,” VAG leaders are making deep cuts to staff and programming – amounting to about 30 per cent of expenses and its work force, which will affect all areas of the gallery and all departments. The reductions are being made as attendance and revenue are at a 15-year low, and at the direction of the board to deliver a balanced budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

“Every single department is being impacted,” co-interim chief executive officer Eva Respini told The Globe and Mail in an interview. She said they will “leave no stone unturned” in the search for savings.

“There are cuts across the operations in the gallery,” said co-interim chief executive officer Sirish Rao in the same interview. “What we do, as well as the people who do it.”

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Voluntary departure packages were offered to staff last week, with layoff notices to be issued on Monday. The exact number of layoffs is unclear until it’s known how many people are taking the incentivized buyout. Prior to these developments, the gallery had 129 full-time employees, including union and non-union staff.

The gallery says deficits were growing and the cuts to staff needed to balance the budget are so deep that it would be impossible to continue operating as before.

The gallery’s most recent financial statements note a general operating deficit of $2.85-million for 2023-2024 and cumulative deficiencies of $32.1-million (including the new building).

While plans to build a new facility are continuing, operations at the current gallery will be deeply affected. The library and archives will close indefinitely, beginning this summer. Travelling exhibitions are on hold and plans to bring in a large Indigenous show from New York this fall have been cancelled. The VAG will rely on its own collection to create temporary exhibitions, and they will run longer. Special programs such as performances and film screenings will be cut back.

Starting this summer, there will be a temporary pause on outgoing loans from the collection. Loans already in progress, such as to MOCA Toronto for an upcoming Jeff Wall exhibition, will be honoured.

There will be fewer acquisitions.

The moves also affect staff at the top. Rao and Respini, named interim co-chief executive officers following the surprise departure of VAG CEO Anthony Kiendl this spring, will remain in the positions and are overseeing the sweeping cuts. No search is underway to replace them. Both also maintain their previous roles; Respini, who joined the VAG in 2023 as deputy director and director of curatorial programs, will not be backfilled; nor will Rao, as director of public engagement and learning.

The chief advancement officer position will remain vacant for now.

“The gallery is doing exactly what it should be doing,” says board chair Jon Stovell. “It would be easy to continue in a less disciplined manner. But I think making these cuts now and repositioning the capital project now are repositioning the gallery for ultimate success. If it didn’t do those things and it didn’t do them properly, it would be far worse.”

The capital project Stovell is referring to, the new gallery, is moving ahead, despite, as Rao put it, the “cognitive dissonance” of building a new facility while slashing programs at the current site.

Construction on a splashy Herzog & de Meuron building was paused last year before the VAG dropped the Swiss firm’s design altogether, citing a staggering rise in costs.

A smaller facility by a Canadian architect (still to be announced) is to be built in that new location.

Rao said the “major city-building project” must continue – citing the downtown land gifted by the city; federal and provincial government funding; and support from philanthropist Michael Audain, who had pledged $100-million to the previous design project.

“These ingredients are incredible to have, no matter what the conditions are,” said Rao. “So to let that slip, it would set this city’s chance of a world-class cultural institution back by a decade, if not more. So there is an imperative to act.”

When asked whether the new building, including the more than $60-million (the figure has now risen to $64-million) spent on the previous design that was scrapped, has contributed to the VAG’s financial woes, Stovell noted capital and operations budgets are separate but acknowledged that some increased costs to the gallery – “not a ton” – resulted from the building project. He said the cuts to the building project and gallery operations are “almost coincidental.”

“I think it’d be the easiest thing in the world for the board and the leadership to just say, ‘Oh, you know, poor us. We got caught up in that. Let’s just balance our budget and hide out in this building.’” But he said they have an obligation to the culture of the city to persevere.

Respini says the new project meets the geopolitical climate. “We’re working with Canadian architects in a moment where we’re thinking a lot around Canadian identity.”

The team referred to the sweeping changes as a “reframing.” “It’s not doing the same thing but less. It means doing different things,” said Respini.

She says cancelling “Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969” was a “very difficult decision,” made only after considering other options, including installing a smaller version of the show, which is currently at Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery. Curated by Candice Hopkins of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, it was supposed to open in Vancouver in November.

Instead, the VAG will mount a show featuring Indigenous art from its collection.

A steady permanent collection exhibition will open next March, featuring highlights by the likes of Emily Carr, Jeff Wall and Beau Dick – B.C. artists many visitors seek out.

Gallery leaders said the cuts are gutting, but they are being fiscally responsible in an uncertain time. They warn that other arts institutions are grappling with similar scenarios. And they call this an opportunity to lean into the collection and offer visitors a very Canadian and British Columbian experience, while fulfilling the gallery’s stated mandate.

“It is both a fraught and exciting moment,” says Rao.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the gallery’s most recent financial statements note a deficit of $32.1-million for 2023-2024. The statements note a general operating deficit of $2.85-million for 2023-2024 and cumulative deficiencies of $32.1-million (including the new building). The article previously stated that $60-million was spent on the previous design for a new building, which was scrapped. An estimated $64-million was spent on the previous design.