Following the departure of Buffalo AKG Art Museum director Janne Sirén in October, after 13 years on the job, the Upstate New York modern and contemporary art museum is turning inward for its future leaders. Today, it announced the appointment of the museum’s current chief curator, Cathleen Chaffee, as the new artistic director, alongside the promotion of its deputy director, Jillian Jones, to become the next executive director. Both will start in their new roles on November 1.
“Over the past twelve years, Jillian Jones and Cathleen Chaffee have each had a transformative impact on this institution — the talent we needed was already here,” said museum board president Alice F. Jacobs in a statement. With the double appointment, the board “saw an opportunity to embrace a leadership model as ambitious as the museum itself, and as forward-looking as the moment demands,” she said.
Both women will be tasked with guiding the museum through the next critical phase, following its most ambitious period of growth in its 164-year history. To that end, the “co-leadership” dynamic was created to reflect how the museum is evolving into a “more complex institution,” as it begins implementing a “new strategic plan that positions the Buffalo AKG as an agile, innovative, and globally engaged cultural institution grounded in artistic excellence and financial sustainability,” stated a press release.
Combined, Jones and Chaffee have over three decades of museum experience, including nearly 25 years at the Buffalo AKG. They helped navigate the museum through its well-received 2023 expansion, which cost $230 million and was overseen by Sirén, who also led efforts to bolster the museum collection and endowment. Visitor numbers reached a record 340,000 following the museum’s post-expansion reopening.
Sirén’s leadership, however, came under scrutiny when local media reported he used a low-interest museum loan to help finance his $710,000 home. The Erie County Comptroller’s Office alleged at the time that Sirén failed to pay off that loan, which itself raised questions for appearing “to violate state laws governing nonprofit organizations,” according to the Buffalo News. His departure was announced a few months after those news reports, but a museum spokesperson told The Art Newspaper the loan had been paid back by then, and Sirén’s decision to step down was unrelated.
Jones, who received her Master of Arts in museum studies from George Washington University, joined the museum in 2015, following work with the philanthropy team at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She has been the Buffalo AKG’s deputy director since 2023, and previously served as its chief fundraising officer in her role as director of advancement. Importantly, she helped lead the museum’s campaign to raise the $230 million needed for its expansion, and worked closely with the OMA architectural firm partner Shohei Shigematsu on its planning and design of the campus transformation.
“It is an extraordinary privilege to serve as executive director at this pivotal moment in the museum’s history,” said Jones in a statement. “At a time when it is increasingly easy to retreat into familiar perspectives, museums invite us to remain curious, embrace complexity, and encounter one another with openness. Artists make those moments possible.”
Chaffee received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and her M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Following curatorial positions at the Yale University Art Gallery, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, she debuted at Buffalo AKG in 2014. She has been the Buffalo museum’s Charles Balbach chief curator since 2017, and has mounted their acclaimed traveling retrospective of Pop artist Marisol, who bequeathed her estate to the museum upon her death in 2016. Among others, she is credited with the alluring installation of the museum’s permanent collection in its newly renovated spaces, along with an “awe-inducing” Clyfford Still show in its brand new building, as described by ARTnews Senior Editor Alex Greenberger.
“Great museums inherit extraordinary histories. Their responsibility, however, is always to the future,” stated Chaffee. “My hope is that we continue to surprise people through the artists we champion and the conversations their work makes possible. I look forward to what the next generation of artists and audiences will ask of us.”
