The Baltimore Museum of Art has formed a search committee to identify the museum’s next director, who will replace current director Chris Bedford after he steps down in June to lead the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The search committee will seek proposals from professional firms to aid the search and selection process, and plans to contract a firm this spring.
But the search committee is not likely to select a new director by June 3, Bedford’s last day at the museum, BMA spokeswoman Anne Mannix-Brown told Baltimore Fishbowl.
“Once a firm is contracted, it will take some time to of course identify candidates, interview them and make an offer,” Brown said. “It’s a long process. I don’t know the timeline, but I know it will not be by June.”
Brown said she also does not know who will serve as interim director between Bedford’s departure and the next director’s start date.
Clair Zamoiski Segal, chair of the BMA Board of Trustees, and trustee Darius Graham will lead the search committee as co-chairs.
“The Search Committee includes a diverse cross section of the BMA’s Board of Trustees, and each member brings different insights and perspectives to this process,” Segal said in a statement. “I know each committee member is committed to seeing the BMA continue to pair artistic excellence with the values of equity, access, and inclusion, and I am confident that together we will identify and attract a leader who will build upon the museum’s stellar reputation.”
In addition to Segal and Graham, the search committee includes BMA trustees Nancy Hackerman, Pamela Hoehn-Saric, Lisa Harris Jones, Fiona Ong, Michael Sherman, Jim Thornton, David Wallace, and Kwame Webb.
The museum will also gather community input from BMA staff, members of the Baltimore arts community, and the museum’s partner organizations.
“The BMA has committed itself to reciprocity with the communities it engages,” Graham said in a statement. “I think including voices from those communities in this search process honors that idea.”
Although the committee does not include representation from BMA staff, Brown said staff and other stakeholders will be able to provide input on the process.
“The ways that other stakeholders involved in the Baltimore arts community and the staff and other organizations are going to be incorporated is still being worked out,” Brown said. “More will be revealed in the coming weeks and months.”
She added that the committee will launch a national search for the museum’s next director, although that does not exclude candidates from Baltimore.
During his nearly six years leading the BMA, Bedford set goals for improving diversity and inclusion at the museum.
Among those efforts was a plan to deaccession three major works, the sales of which were meant to benefit the BMA’s “Endowment for the Future.” The plan drew both support and backlash, and the museum ultimately pulled back on the proposal.
Other initiatives included the sale of seven artworks to purchase more works by artists of color and women; a year of exhibitions and programs dedicated to art created by women; and an exhibit curated by BMA security guards, which will open next month.
Bedford also declined to voluntarily recognize a unionization effort by BMA workers. BMA leaders said they would “work collaborative with union representatives” if workers had a majority vote to form a union.
Some members of the Baltimore arts community have advocated for the BMA’s next director to be Black, given that the majority of the city’s residents are Black.
Brown said the committee is still very early in the process.
But she added “the goal is to find the best director for the BMA and for Baltimore. I’m sure that the committee is going to do everything possible to make sure that that happens.”
