National Gallery revenue increasing but director wants more
National Gallery of Canada (courtesy NGC)
The number of visitors – and the money they spent – at the National Gallery of Canada all increased dramatically in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, compared with the previous year when the Covid-19 pandemic raged, Jean-François Bélisle, gallery director, told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage this week.
In his prepared remarks, the new director also signalled a change from the previous administration headed by Sasha Suda and her interim replacement Angela Cassie by saying that the gallery’s pursuit of “diversity” will be delivered through its choices in acquiring and exhibiting art rather than through corporate pronouncements.
Attendance in 2022-23 was 279,000, a 68-per-cent increase from the previous fiscal year. Revenue from operations increased 81 per cent to $7.7 million.
During the Suda-Cassie years, the gallery instituted corporate policies designed to ensure all gallery exhibitions and operations respected Indigenous ways of thinking and that more attention was paid to diversifying employees, exhibitions and acquisitions. The diversity policies became controversial, especially as some veteran curators and other experts were fired, laid off or retired.
“We want the gallery to remain a place where the collections, the exhibitions and the experiences we facilitate are the vehicle for diversity, dialogue and inclusiveness,” Bélisle told MPs. “We’re going to make sure that artwork – rather than corporate policies – does the talking.”
Later, during a question-and-answer session with MPs, Bélisle made a pitch for at least $10 million to be added to the gallery’s $45.8 million budget, according to a Radio-Canada report.
"One of the big challenges of the museum's budget is that it is adequate to operate a museum in the Ottawa region. But our mandate ... is to be active in the entire country, to represent Canadian artists on the international scene and set up projects in collaboration with museums in other countries.”
Traveling works of art and people across the country and internationally “is prohibitively expensive,” Bélisle is reported to have said, according to Radio-Canada.
Source: National Gallery of Canada and Radio-Canada
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