Earlier this month, the board of directors of the Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Art voted to dissolve the 44-year-old institution, effective immediately. The meeting took place on Wednesday April 5th and the last day of operation was Thursday April 6th.
“Closing a cherished community organization like the CCA is one of the most difficult decisions a board can make,” board chair David Muck said in a statement. statement. “However, we simply could not secure the level of individual donations required to achieve the high quality of programming and exhibitions envisioned by the CCA’s professional staff and Board of Trustees.
Now, it seems that this decision was too hasty. Following the April 6 announcement, there has been an outpouring of support from the Santa Fe community. Community members are mobilizing to reopen the doors, with plans to resume programming at the theaters CCA on May 3 with an emergency fundraiser of $195,000.
“There are not enough words to express our gratitude for your kindness,” Muck wrote in an email to donors, which was provided to Artnet News. The missive was released following an April 14 board meeting assessing the viability of resuscitating the organization, the loss of which residents say would be a major downgrade for the city.
“There’s no real arthouse movie theater in this town now…there’s just no access to arthouse and foreign films here” , said Warren Langford at the Santa Fe Reporter. “It’s just one of those things that I always knew was sort of on the chopping block, although you think there were enough wealthy patrons of a certain demographic that he was going to , hopefully staying afloat; but honestly, this stuff died out in other cities and towns a long time ago – it’s a wonder it lasted this long.
Prior to the abrupt closure, CCA had 13 employees and set its annual budget at $1.28 million. The board now estimates that with just $300,000 it can quickly revive a rudimentary movie theater operation, with the gallery to follow later.
“CCA will seek a strategic partner.… Several entities and groups are presenting plans to partner with CCA, and the board is actively evaluating options and performing the necessary due diligence. The board will meet, interview and assess the various candidates,” the status update via email continued. “The strategic partners under consideration will represent a new direction for the CCA’s gallery space.
Presumably, this new leadership would not include Executive Director and Chief Curator Danyelle Means, who has led the institution since July 2021. Immediately after the CCA closed, there was speculation that some donors had walked away from the institution. institution because of the curatorial direction of Means. , including exhibits such as “Self-Determined: A Contemporary Inquiry into Native and Indigenous Artists.”
Danyelle Means, former Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe. Photo by Paulina Gwaltney, courtesy of Contemporary Arts Santa Fe.
“Not many people will say, ‘I don’t like it because it’s getting browner or younger,’ but that’s absolutely what happened when the CCA found out [Danyelle Means]“said former CCA deputy director April Chalay. Hyperallergic. “We had people start to criticize us and say, ‘Your producer is Indigenous and you’re doing an Indigenous show, are you just going to be an Indigenous arts organization? Because that’s not what I want to give to.
Means was more circumspect about what happened.
“Fundraising is an ongoing concern for any nonprofit right now,” Means told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “People keep their cash available. This is what it all boils down to: Support for the ACC has declined over the past few years, especially in the wake of the pandemic. And we were really hoping to be able to re-engage some of our generous donors, but we couldn’t.
The CCA board did not respond to inquiries from Artnet News about Means’ future with the organization, or what the gallery’s “new management” might mean for exhibitions that were already in the works. planning stage.
The Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Arts in its early years, when it was known as the Rising Sun Media Arts Center. Photo courtesy of Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Art.
But former board member Paul Barnes, a film editor and producer, has volunteered to be the interim chief executive of CCA Cinema, which “will continue with scheduled films and programs”, according to the e- donor email.
In its initial announcement of the sudden closure, the CCA Board cited the effects of prolonged pandemic closures, which challenged all cultural institutions. CCA particularly struggled as it had to halve the number of tickets it could sell at its cinema, due to social distancing. And since many film distributors turned to streaming, rather than cinemas, for their premieres, there were fewer films the organization could reserve.
The institution also acknowledged receipt of a renewable three-year grant from the Ford Foundation of $100,000 per year, $50,000 from the Ruth Arts Foundation, and other grants. This type of support is invaluable, but it is also usually restricted, meaning it must be dedicated to specific programming or exhibitions and cannot be used to meet other organizational needs, such as payroll. .
The specter of the CCA’s closure had been hovering for more than a year. The board had previously voted to keep the lights on in December 2021, in hopes that the CCA could raise enough donations to keep operations going.
But it seems the community has been largely left in the dark about the organization’s dire situation. The CCA sent its last email to members on December 28, a missive that did not include a call for donations. Instead, the organization would have focused on individual outreach in its fundraising efforts in 2023.
“CCA has been in this position so many times, we were hesitant to do the boy who cried wolf approach once again,” Muck told the Santa Fe Reporter, which reported on the turmoil within the institution in the mid-1990s, when the founders were fired, the staff laid off, and the board resigned en masse. “We didn’t think people would take us seriously.”
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