Todd Smith is expected to resign today as executive director of the Gibbes Museum, according to the Post and Courier. Not much else is known except that the announcement will happen during a meeting of the board of directors, the people Smith answers to.
I’m frankly surprised. Smith’s 42, fashionable, driven, ambitious, and dynamic. Just the thing for the frumpy Gibbes, an art museum better known for portraits of dead people than art with life and blood in it. His tenure began two years ago. He was just starting to get his feet under him. His resignation is effective April 1, but he will remain in a “part-time” capacity until June.
It sounds to me like something’s gone awry.
A theory: Smith butted heads with the wrong people over the Gibbes’ future.
He was brought to Charleston by a search committee looking for someone to build a new museum. His mandate was to devise a new vision, one that’s as forward-thinking and cutting-edge as the Spoleto Festival. That meant building, because the current museum is a mess. It needs lots of work and it’s not adequate for showcasing modern art — as in art created in the last half century. By way of example, the exhibit of William Christenberry’s photographs last year was engulfed in shadows produced by overhead light in that cavernous main exhibition hall. The old Gibbes needs updating.
Last month, I had an interview with Smith. I learned he had recently returned from what’s called a retreat with the board of directors (they all go to “neutral” territory to have some jolly good fun while talking about more serious stuff, like the future of the museum). Smith told me that at the retreat he unveiled some of his plans for a new building — how to build it, how to raise money for it, what it’s mission might be, what the Gibbes’ position in the cultural marketplace might be as a result of owning and operating a new building.
He was shocked to discovered resistance to his proposals (the details of the proposal were not shared with me, because they were more dream than reality at the time Smith and I talked). He thought that will time he could overcome the pockets of resistance with the help of some allies in the board.
Evidently, he and his allies have lost the fight. That’s my theory anyway. I say this could be bad for the Gibbes, because public messes like this are bad for philanthropy. No one wants to support a house in disorder. I hope they clean this up quickly. Meanwhile, phone calls to the museum have so far been relayed to a nameless receptionist. More later.
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