Spector’s departure after more than three decades at the New York museum follows months of controversy
The Guggenheim in New York has announced that curator and artistic director Nancy Spector has stepped down from her roles ‘to pursue other curatorial endeavours and to finish her doctoral dissertation.’
Spector’s departure, after 34 years at the museum, follows the conclusion of a three-month-long independent investigation into a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition held last year, and allegations made by the show’s guest curator Chaédria LaBouvier, a Black woman, of racial bias.
In June, LaBouvier wrote in a social media post: ‘Working at the Guggenheim w/ Nancy Spector & the leadership was the most racist professional experience of my life.’ LaBouvier detailed one incident in which she alleged Spector had held a panel discussion about the exhibition without extending an invitation to its own curator.
The investigation, carried out through ‘reviewing more than 15,000 documents and conducting a broad range of interviews with current and former Guggenheim employees’ found that there had been no wrongdoing or mistreatment of LaBouvier ‘on the basis of her race’, the museum said. LaBouvier said on Twitter that she had not been interviewed for the investigation; the museum said that she had not responded to requests to be interviewed.
However, LaBouvier’s claims led to a letter signed by hundreds of current and former Guggenheim staff condemning systemic racism at the museum. The Guggenheim responded with a plan to diversify its employees and programming.
The Guggenheim’s statement praised Spector as a ‘tireless advocate for the diversification of the Guggenheim’s exhibition programme and curatorial department […] Spector hired BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of colour) curators, and led efforts to expand the collection to include works by artists of colour, female artists, queer artists, and non-binary artists. She spearheaded the establishment of the Indigenous Study Group in the Curatorial Department and was an early advocate for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) planning at the museum.’
Spector commented on the conclusion of the investigation, saying in the museum’s statement: ‘I am so pleased the Board of Trustees moved forward with an independent investigation that sought out the facts and confirmed what I have known from the start – which is that I did not treat the guest curator of Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story adversely on the basis of race.’
