After 13 years at the helm of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Janne Sirén is stepping down from the director post and returning to Europe. The museum announced on Wednesday (29 April) that Sirén will vacate the role in October and the board of directors will begin planning its search for a new leader this summer. Sirén’s departure follows a pivotal period of growth for the museum, which was known as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery when he was appointed in 2013, including a campus renovation and expansion project completed in 2023 through a $230m capital campaign.
“There are always a combination of professional and personal factors when it comes to a decision like this,” Sirén tells The Art Newspaper. “One marker in this process of starting to think about next chapters was the completion of the campus expansion project. I would say another, more personal, factor is that now that my children are grown and have left the house, I’ve started looking at the world differently.”
The campus development initiative was a significant milestone for the museum. Prolonged due to the pandemic, the four-year construction project redesigned the flow of the grounds, connected existing structures and added a jewellery-box shaped building designed by OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) and partner Shohei Shigematsu.
Beyond the physical expansion during Sirén’s tenure, the collection grew steadily, the museum’s staff increased from 62 to nearly 200, the endowment ballooned from $31.3m in 2013 to $79.3m today, and annual visitor numbers reached 340,000 following the expansion.
“It’s easy to point to the material facts like the campus expansion as an accomplishment, but I really look at the growth and evolution of the team,” Sirén says. “We’ve become a high-performance team and we’ve emerged as an institution that is very committed to its local community and cares deeply about what happens here in Buffalo and Western New York. But at the same time, we are increasingly a player on various international and global platforms. And that’s not just me, that’s us together.”
Buffalo AKG’s purview under Sirén also expanded. After joining the museum in 2013, he launched a public art department that has since brought over 60 projects to Western New York. The following year, he introduced the Innovation Lab, a creative incubator that ran until 2020, bringing together arts, science and technology to address issues facing museums and communities more broadly.
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum Photo by Jason O’Rear
Sirén also helped strengthen the museum’s international relationships, launching the AKG Nordic Art and Culture Initiative in 2021. The platform organises exhibitions and programmes at the museum and in Buffalo to support artists with ties to the Nordic Region. In 2023, Buffalo AKG also bolstered its American network, establishing the National Council of supporters who act as ambassadors for the museum.
Sirén’s tenure was not without challenges. Last year, the museum came under fire for laying off 13 employees in what the union representing them alleged was retaliation against its members. (The museum denied that union membership factored into the layoffs and the National Labor Relations Board has to date not ruled on the incident.) Earlier this year, the Erie County Comptroller’s Office discovered that Sirén owed $335,000 to the museum for a home loan received as part of his recruitment package in 2013. A spokesperson for the museum says neither of these issues factored into Sirén’s decision to leave and confirmed that the loan has been paid back.
Reflecting on his time at the museum, Sirén has overwhelmingly positive sentiments, noting that the challenges of being a director are not unique to the Buffalo AKG. “I’m sure many of my colleagues feel the same way that leading a museum is challenging,” he says. “You have to strike a balance between the aspirations of an ambitious curatorial team and the budgetary means required to make their visions possible. You have to consider the work-life balance of your entire team. It’s an archipelago of challenges that you must learn to sail through and not be disturbed by obstacles and failures.”
As for Sirén’s life after Buffalo, he is looking beyond the role of museum director for the time being. “I’m not going to be prescriptive about the distant future, I still have years on the clock,” he says. “My roots are in academia. The daily life of a director is intense minute to minute and there are things I’ve said I’d write one day, but that day never comes unless you make a decision for it to come. My inner voice tells me that I have an exciting next chapter to explore, but that’s not my focus for the next six months.”
While his professional plans are still, “a dish that is not fully baked yet”, Sirén is eager to spend more time in nature. “I will miss every single one of my team members,” he says. “I will miss the amazing collection. I will miss the community of wonderful people in Buffalo. I grew up spending time in the literal wilderness, taking solo hikes north of the Arctic Circle and diving in the North Atlantic. As director, I had very little time to be deep in nature and that is what I’m looking forward to having time for.”
