Gaëtane Verna, the embattled executive director of the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, will resign effective immediately.
The news comes a week after the Columbus Dispatch reported that Wexner had accumulated a $1.1 million deficit in fiscal year 2024, and that more than a dozen employees signed a formal letter of no confidence in Verna’s leadership. That letter was sent to university officials.
The Dispatch reported that employees at the center were informed of the resignation in an October 29 email from Ohio State University Provost Ravi M. Bellamkonda. According to the email reviewed by the Dispatch, senior vice provost for academic affairs Trevor Brown will “guide this transition in close collaboration with the center’s leadership team” until an interim leader is named.
“The Wex is well known for its outstanding staff of creative and dedicated professionals and, with your continued support, we will continue to serve the community and support artists from Ohio and across the globe during this transition and for many years to follow,” Bellamkonda reportedly wrote.
Verna was appointed executive director of the Wexner in August 2022 after more than a decade leading Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery as its director and artistic director. The Canadian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, titled “Kapwani Kiwanga: Trinket,” and commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada, was curated by Verna.
She inherited a Wexner facing financial turmoil worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. The center’s fiscal health and workplace culture appeared to deteriorate further after her arrival.
The center finished Fiscal Year 2024 about $2.5 million short of its projected income, the Dispatch reported, resulting in a $1 million deficit. A review of the Wexner Center Foundation board’s finances also found that the center spent $365,000 on a website update, $185,000 on a new projector, and $1 million on “unspecified capital expenditures.”
“Over the past three years, it is our opinion that her approach has resulted in high turnover, organizational dysfunction, financial instability, and reputational harm,” reads the letter, as quoted by the Columbus-based Matter News. (The 27 museum employees represented by Wex Workers United were not presented with the letter, as the union has its own protocol for bringing grievances to museum leadership.)
One year prior to the date the letter was sent, the Columbus Dispatch published a report in which Wexner staff members detailed a “a culture of dysfunction perpetuated by the museum’s executive director” that forced the departure of more than two dozen employees.
The letter echoed many of these claims and pointed to new examples of alleged fiscal irresponsibility, including the university issuing the center a “red card” for financial turmoil and the launch of a major capital project with a reported budget of $1 million said to lack “transparent budgeting, staff consultation, or a completed feasibility study.” The letter also criticized Verna’s decision to direct university funds toward a series of exhibition catalogues, a project the signatories said would cost more than $200,000 and raised “serious questions about fairness, transparency, and responsible budget use.”
The Dispatch reported in August that 23 employees left under Verna’s leadership, citing current and former employees and HR documents. That month, the center’s director of advancement operations and its head of finance and administration both announced their departures. In July, two employees were also laid off due to “a lack of funds at the Wexner Center,” as Verna wrote in an email shared with local press.
Details about interim leadership at the Wexner are still forthcoming.
