Anthony Kiendl took over as director of the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2020.Jackie Dives/The Globe and Mail
The Vancouver Art Gallery, which recently scrapped plans for a large Swiss-designed building, has parted ways with its executive director. As of Monday, Anthony Kiendl is no longer chief executive officer and director, the VAG confirmed on Tuesday.
“We agreed to separate,” board chair Jon Stovell told The Globe and Mail. He called the parting “amicable” and declined to share specific reasons.
Until a new director is hired, Eva Respini, the deputy director and the director of curatorial programs, and Sirish Rao, the director of public engagement and learning, will serve as co-interim leaders.
Kiendl took over as director of the gallery in 2020, inheriting plans for a purpose-built facility that had been approved by his predecessor, Kathleen Bartels. Kiendl continued with the project – which would have seen a 310,000-square-foot building designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron – in spite of concerns about rising costs and fewer funding dollars. In September, 2023, he oversaw a celebratory “ground awakening” ceremony at the site where the new gallery is to be built.
But ground was never broken.
A year later, work at the site was paused. And late in 2024, the VAG announced it would not go ahead with the Herzog and de Meuron design, despite having spent more than $60-million on the doomed project. The $400-million budget had ballooned to $600-million.
A new plan was announced: to hire a Canadian firm to build a smaller, more sustainable facility on the land that was to house the larger gallery. “Our goal is to create a building that embodies a diverse and inclusive artistic vision while ensuring financial sustainability within a fixed budget,” Kiendl said in a statement in December.
On Tuesday, Stovell said it would be wrong to pin Kiendl’s departure on problems with the building project. “Obviously the challenges that the gallery’s had over the years preceded Anthony, so I don’t think it would be fair to isolate that onto his role. I just think it’s fundamentally a very challenging objective.”
He said the plan for the new gallery is moving forward. “We will keep at it. We have an amazing opportunity provided by the city with this piece of land, and they still seem to be very supportive and eager for that to proceed.”
The gallery has issued an invitation-only request for proposals to 14 Canadian architects. Stovell said the gallery will be reviewing the proposals over the next couple of months.
Kiendl joined the VAG during the pandemic summer of 2020. “This is one of Canada’s and the world’s great art galleries, and I’ve been working towards this kind of role on this scale my entire career,” he told The Globe and Mail at the time.
Then-board chair David Calabrigo told The Globe that Kiendl’s leadership style was what the gallery needed. “He’s got a history and a proven track record of being inclusive.”
Stovell said on Tuesday that Kiendl’s contributions should be recognized: He ushered the gallery through the pandemic, advanced Indigenous reconciliation and raised capital for the building project.
Kiendl came to Vancouver from Regina, where he was director and CEO of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. Born on Long Island, N.Y., and raised in Winnipeg, Kiendl had previously worked at the Banff Centre in Alberta and Winnipeg’s Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art.
Kiendl will return to the VAG as a guest curator next month for the Lucy Raven: Murderers Bar exhibition, which he curated.
