\n\tTrustee Patsy Marino would resign just a week after Vendredi\u2019s hire, claiming in a resignation letter that the committee \u201cdid not interview a single outside candidate\u201d even though two \u201cexceptional\u201d candidates were under consideration, the Times reports. She further cited \u201cinappropriate interference and attempts to influence the process\u201d by the museum\u2019s executive committee as well as by individual trustees and other museum staff and donors. She told the board that \u201cPSAM\u2019s already poor reputation\u201d would suffer further as a result of the selection. The Times notes that two more board members have left the 22-member body.<\/p>\n
\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n
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\n\tTurnover has been fairly rapid since Steven Nash, who had previously headed the Dallas Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, retired in 2014. Adam Lerner, who had assumed the post in summer 2021, resigned suddenly in April; he had previously headed the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tThe Palm Springs Art Museum.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGuillaume Goureau, courtesy Palm Springs Art Museum.<\/p>\n
\n\tFounded in 1938 as the Palm Springs Desert Museum, the institution narrowed its focus to art and changed its name in 2005. A member of the American Alliance of Museums, it also owns two historic buildings and operates a sculpture garden in Palm Desert. It holds about 5,000 sculptures, paintings, prints, and photographs, including works by Marina Abramovi\u0107, Louise Bourgeois, Mark Bradford, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Antony Gormley, Duane Hanson, Mona Hatoum, Barbara Hepworth, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Henry Moore, Sarah Sze, and Stanley Whitney. The museum holds an endowment of about $20 million, per the Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tCraig Hartzman, chair of the board, defended Vendredi\u2019s hire, telling the Times that the museum was \u201cthrilled\u201d at the appointment, calling the process fair and saying it was \u201cconducted in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe museum did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.<\/p>\n
\n\tVendredi had worked at the museum for a year and eight months as chief curator, and was interim CEO since April. She had previously worked for 13 years at luxury brand Louis Vuitton, including for nine years as director for art, culture, and heritage, leading major exhibitions and commissions. She earned an art history PhD from the Sorbonne in Paris and one in architectural history from Prague\u2019s Charles University as well as an executive MBA from HEC Paris, but she held no previous museum experience.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn her letter, Marino also claims that the museum failed to publicize the director opening for four months after Lerner\u2019s departure, and that the museum didn\u2019t hire a professional search firm. The museum received fewer than 20 applications after the job was posted in August, said Marino, from people who were \u201cmostly unqualified.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tMarino has served on the board of the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art and as an advisor to the Stuart Collection at University of California San Diego, which commissions public art projects for the campus. She previously was on the committee that found a director of Murals of La Jolla, which has commissioned 17 murals on view there.<\/p>\n
\n\tTwo committee members had interviewed Vendredi by early September, and Marino\u2019s letter indicates that four of the six search committee members strongly wanted to end the search. The museum had been without a director in five months, strongly impacting the institution. Marino writes that she was on a business trip in India when the museum\u2019s executive committee held a meeting. When Marino asked board chair Hartzman whether there was news afoot on the director search, he said no, she claims, but then four days later, with Marino still in India, the museum announced Vendredi\u2019s hire.\u00a0Hartzman, per the Times, \u201ctook strong objection\u201d to Marino\u2019s description of the hiring process in her letter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe museum was also frequently in the news over several years during a protracted legal battle over a 26-foot-high sculpture of Marilyn Monroe by artist Seward Johnson that was placed in front of the museum. Forever Marilyn captures the classic moment from the Billy Wilder comedy The Seven Year Itch (1955) in which a gust of wind from a subway vent sends the actress\u2019s dress flying into the air. The museum argued that the placement would imply the museum\u2019s approval, and it was decided in 2024 that the museum would move to a city park, Artnet News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trouble is brewing in sunny Palm Springs, California, where an art museum board member has loudly exited her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,366,18,117,19,17,100598],"class_list":{"0":"post-177284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-palm-springs-art-museum"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115538850497637978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}