Artists pull shows after removal of curator
The David Ireland House at 500 Capp St. opened at noon Saturday, July 6, with a crowd lined up outside the small private museum — but the people weren’t waiting to get in. They were standing outside in solidarity with head curator Bob Linder, who was fired last month.
The official word from the 500 Capp Street Foundation is that Linder was laid off June 25 because of a budget gap of about $100,000 when national and local grants failed to come through as expected. Museum founder and benefactor Carlie Wilmans was unable to make up the shortfall, she told The Chronicle.
But the word on the street at the corner of 20th and Capp is that Linder was fired so that the museum could drastically scale back the programming of national and international artists that Linder curated, and to make the house more of a museum dedicated solely to the installation work of Ireland, the American sculptor, conceptual artist and Minimalist architect who died at 78 in 2009.
“We’re here to show the connection of 500 Capp Street to the contemporary art world and that it’s not just stuck in the past,” said Aaron Harbour, codirector of Et Al Gallery in
San Francisco’s Chinatown. “It’s a show of support for what is going away.”
One thing that is definitely going away is the current exhibition, “Timeshare,” the West Coast institutional premiere for Vancouver artist Liz Magor. The show, consisting of surreal everyday objects such as rows of shoes in boxes and a cast leather glove topped with a burnt cigarette, took her a year to put together in partnership with Linder. It opened June 22 and was scheduled to be up until Oct. 12, but Magor closed it at the end of the day Saturday in protest of Linder’s treatment by the foundation.
“Obviously there’s a lack of understanding of the role that context plays in the exhibition of work,” Magor said in an email to The Chronicle. “Context begins with a curator and artist working together, and then it’s maintained by curatorial oversight during the exhibition and strengthened by a coherent program of exhibitions. There’s no point exhibiting if an appropriate context isn’t in place.”
The other artist on exhibit, Nina Canell of Berlin, aligned with Magor and announced that she, too, is withdrawing her art from being displayed at the Ireland museum. Neither artist was at the protest Saturday, but there were plenty of others representing them, from working artists and freelance curators to gallery owners, and members of the curatorial staff at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the CCA Wattis Institute. The crowd was about 50 strong Saturday afternoon when it broke into spontaneous applause at the sight of a man pushing a baby stroller across Capp Street. It was Linder and his young son, Felix.
“They’re rallying in support of not just me but the tragic loss of this program,” said Linder, 46. “All of these artists are standing behind a curator.”
Like most of the protesters, Linder didn’t go inside the house, but he encouraged others to do so. “See the show,” he told friends on the street. “It’s beautiful.”
As an added incentive, the usual $12.50 Saturday admission charge was waived. A total of 135 people came through the museum, about 100 more than a normal Saturday.
Wilmans had promised in advance to be there to greet people, but she canceled. Reached by phone Saturday, Wilmans expressed surprise at the upheaval at 500 Capp Street. “I never expected it to be so vehement,” the museum founder said.
Wilmans, the granddaughter of the late arts benefactor Phyllis Wattis, paid $895,000 for the twostory 1886 Edwardian in 2012 to preserve the legacy of Ireland, a pioneering conceptual artist who used his home as his primary and ongoing installation. Wilmans put about $5 million of her own money into the museum, which opened in January 2015.
During its first year, the museum drew 5,000 visitors to exhibits that were strictly Ireland’s art. In late 2016, the 500 Capp Street Foundation added a garage gallery and announced that it would be showing other artists under curators Linder, who had studied under Ireland, and Diego Villalobos, who had studied under Linder, all at the San Francisco Art Institute.
During the past three years, there have been about 20 shows attracting another 5,000 visitors. What Wilmans envisioned as an artists’ residency “has morphed into a visiting artists” program, she said. That program may be cut back, but 500 Capp Street will continue to show the work of other artists. “I never intended to put a bell jar over it,” Wilmans said.
Wilmans will have to start over, though, because every artist commissioned by Linder — into 2020 — has since withdrawn.
Villalobos, 28, is still employed as curator.
The museum runs on an annual budget of $602,000; unable to fund it at her previous levels, Wilmans and the board applied for numerous grants in San Francisco and beyond, but none of the funding came through, Wilmans said, so Linder’s termination was strictly a financial necessity. Wilmans attributes the inability to land funding largely to 500 Capp Street’s not being as vigorous as hoped in its educational programs.
“The primary funder, me, couldn’t afford to fund it like I have in years past,” she said. “That’s the bottom line.”
At its annual meeting, the board of directors elected Jock Reynolds as its new chairman. He had retired June 30 as director of the Yale University Art Gallery, and though he will remain in New Haven, Conn., he said he is newly dedicated to 500 Capp Street. The space is scheduled to close at the end of the year for conservation work.
“We laid Bob off with ‘thanks,’ saying we could no longer afford two curators,” Reynolds said.
Linder said he will not receive severance pay and had to sign a nondisclosure agreement at the start of his employment that restricts him from talking specifically about his recent termination. But others are speaking up, like Bay Area arts curator Micki Meng.
“The manner in which Head Curator Bob Linder was dismissed comes as a shock and blow to all of our spirits,” Meng said in an email sent out for circulation among fellow supporters and media. “It feels like the bottom fell out from under us in a time when we are witnessing mass evictions, closures, and friends leaving us every day.”
Another artist and curator, Jordan Stein, has led a campaign on Linder’s behalf that includes a GoFundMe effort to raise $20,000 in place of a severance for Linder.
“I think this is catalytic. It is the moment where a lot of people who work in the arts can’t hack it anymore,” Stein said at the protest. “This is some kind of tipping point. The art ecosystem in San Francisco is increasingly fragile.”
All the while, Wilmans said she plans to press on, motivated by the same impulses she felt the first time she walked into 500 Capp St.
“It’s a unique space, one of a kind in this country,” Wilmans said. “It continues to be a lifechanging experience for me every time I go into the house.”
Magor and Canell’s work is expected to be removed Monday, July 8, and the house will be restocked with some of Ireland’s 2,500 works. Plans are to reopen for guided tours the week of July 22, said Cait Molloy, director of 500 Capp Street.