Art gallery gets a new leader
Zemsky’s turn as president of the board starts with expanded hours, outreach
Moving a more than century-old institution into the next phase of its existence can be akin to moving mountains, even when that institution is not wedded so much to tradition as it is to exploration. The job is a difficult but not impossible task when it’s undertaken by those with enough faith and energy to get the job done.
Such seems to be the case with the election of Leslie H. Zemsky as the next leader of the 147-year-old Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
She takes over from Charles W. Banta, who brought a focused emphasis on reaffirming the mission of the institution as the most dynamic museum possible in the sphere of modern and contemporary art.
Under Banta’s leadership, the gallery made progress on its strategic plan for the gallery, including acquisitions, exhibitions and community outreach. The endowment for the purchase of artworks quadrupled, largely because of the bold but controversial 2007 deaccessioning of antiquities that netted $71 million at auction.
Banta empowered the staff to do its work and move the gallery forward and chose this current leadership rotation, welcoming in Zemsky as the first woman to take the helm.
That historic distinction is nice, but it’s not really the point. More important is the fact that this is a solid choice. Zemsky has energy, enthusiasm, dynamism and a perspective that will encourage and develop the next chapter in the Albright-Knox story.
The gallery is in the middle of a strategic planning process, facilitated by a consultant to mark out the next three to five years. Zemsky has embraced that process, designed in part to solidify and increase the gallery’s endowment for operations.
A significant portion of the current endowment is restricted for the purchase of art, and a key element in creating a stronger institution is raising the endowment for unrestricted funds for operations. This effort will be part of the work over the next three to five years.
The new leader of the board has great instincts for community involvement centered on education and outreach, and will bring new energy to board leadership. She was founding chairwoman of Advancing Arts and Culture, which supports arts organizations in both Erie and Niagara counties.
Zemsky, on the board since 2005, served as co-chairwoman of its governance and strategic planning committees. She voices enormous respect for the community and its future and enthusiastically discusses Art’scool, a partnership with BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York that has brought hundreds of Western New York students to the gallery for free introductory tours and in-depth, classroom-linked views of the gallery.
Her tenure also is off to a solid start with expanded hours and a return to a six-day schedule, an important factor for an institution that helps anchor the cultural landscape on which Buffalo hopes to build its future.
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