The Whitechapel Gallery in London has made six staff members redundant, half of them senior curators, The arts journal reports. Among those dismissed are Lydia Yee, who served as the gallery’s chief curator, and Candy Stobbs, associate curator for more than two decades. The curatorial team will be led by Gilane Tawadros, who took on the role as director of Whitechapel last spring. Tawadros will be assisted by the two remaining curators, a special projects curator and an exhibitions manager, who has not yet been appointed, as the position has just been created.
The move comes as Whitechapel, like museums and galleries across England, grapples with soaring energy costs, rising inflation and stagnating trade in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. A Whitechapel spokesperson noted the gallery was running a “significant deficit” for the 2022-23 financial year, partly due to cuts in funding from the Arts Council of England. The gallery’s annual report for fiscal year 2021-22 shows a deficit of about $88,000. “The Whitechapel Gallery is committed to achieving annual surpluses from the 2023/24 financial year and is making changes to its strategy and business model to ensure this is the case,” the carrier said. word.
Iwona Blazwick, who led Whitechapel for twenty years before departure in January 2022 at oversee the Wadi Al Fann project which is part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program, said The arts journal“The ACE discount [from an annual $1.83 million in 2018–2022 to an annual $1.74 million in 2023–26] was relatively small, so it is alarming to hear that very experienced curators and fundraisers are losing their jobs and programs are being cut. I hope the gallery will maintain its commitment to artists and its reputation as a platform for important art and ideas.
