In one of his first extensive interviews as the new director of the Philadelphia Art Museum, Daniel H. Weiss told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his institution’s board doesn’t require major changes after the abrupt firing of his predecessor last year.
Amid a controversial rebranding, Sasha Suda was terminated in November for what an email described as “cause.” Following her dismissal, media reports revealed that the board had accused her of misappropriating funds by growing her salary by $39,000 across a two year period. Suda, who is currently locked in a lawsuit against the museum, claimed that that increase was authorized.
Weiss, who formerly served as president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was brought on as the Philadelphia Art Museum’s director and CEO in November, not long after Suda’s firing.
The Inquirer interview suggested that he continued to stand by the museum’s board. Previously, Suda’s lawyer claimed that certain trustees “commissioned a sham investigation to create a pretext for Ms. Suda’s termination.”
“I don’t think our board needs radical restructuring … and this may seem counterintuitive in light of what you’ve been reading about in the newspapers, I think our board needs to be embraced as a real partner,” Weiss told the Inquirer this week. “And I do believe deeply in shared governance and that means the director and the senior administration have a job to do and the board has a job to do.”
Yet he did not mince words when he spoke of the need for changes at the museum, particularly when it comes to its financials. “We have a deficit,” Weiss said. “It is not sustainable and we need to fix it. In order to do that, we need to take a larger look at the organization and build a healthy model.” The Inquirer reported that Weiss has begun a “listening tour” with museum staff that he said will involve assessing “the most present problems that need to be addressed.”
For the broader public, one of those issues is the museum’s widely ridiculed rebrand from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Philadelphia Art Museum. Many made fun of the rebrand because it was perceived as not a big enough difference and as an easy target for jokes, since its new acronym, PhAM, could easily be mistaken as PhArt.
“We need to sort out the rebrand and determine whether we change it or stay with it,” Weiss said. “And we’re looking at that.” The interview was published on Tuesday, one day after the Inquirer reported that the marketing chief who led the rebrand effort had resigned.
