Amid a ballooning deficit that could approach $10m by June, the Brooklyn Museum plans to lay off 47 staff members. The news was first reported by Hyperallergic and The New York Times on 7 February.
The museum’s director Anne Pasternak informed staff via email that the museum was “experiencing strong headwinds: inflation has dramatically impacted our operating budget, adding millions of dollars to everyday costs and outpacing funding”. The financial precarity was “further compounded by slow post-pandemic attendance recovery across the field”, she added.
The layoffs will affect workers in a combination of union and non-union jobs, both full- and part-time. According to Hyperallergic, an official at Local 1502—a division of the District Council 37 union that represents art handlers, curatorial assistants and maintenance workers—noted that they found out about the layoffs only a day before other staff at the museum, on 6 February. Given the timing of the layoffs, this may violate a breach of the union’s contract; the union has sent a cease-and-desist letter to stop the museum from making these cuts. The proposed layoffs, affecting around 10% of the museum’s workforce, are due to take effect in March.
In order to help redress the museum’s current financial situation, leaders also announced a hiring freeze, as well as salary cuts of 10% to 20% for senior leadership. The museum will also mount fewer exhibitions, scaling back from 12 a year to just nine shows. Additionally, there will be fewer weeknight events, which will be countered by more weekend programming.
According to Pasternak, the museum’s operating budget for fiscal year 2025 is $64m and salaries make up 70% of it. These are the first major layoffs at the museum since 2020, at the height of the pandemic. That year the museum let go of close to 30 staff members.
Despite its financial woes, the museum is coming off a blockbuster 2024, which marked the bicentennial of its founding and included popular exhibitions like Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm and Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies. The museum also launched a new brand identity timed to its 200th anniversary. Pasternak wrote in her letter to staff last week that is “time for reflection” and to “ask important questions, confront challenges and advance necessary change”. She also noted that the layoffs will not affect the timeline for the renovation of the museum’s Arts of Africa galleries.
The museum also recently lost a pair of high-profile employees: on 20 December, Pasternak announced the departure of chief operating officer Kimberly Panicek Trueblood and chief people officer Allison Avery.
The Brooklyn Museum has often been the venue, backdrop or target for political protests, including several pro-Palestine rallies staged since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. Last May, more than 30 protesters were arrested during a large demonstration that resulted in several people scaling the façade of the museum to hang a banner.
Also last year, Pasternak and Trudeblood’s homes were targeted by vandals who sprayed them with red paint and tagged them. Three suspects in those incidents have since been charged with hate crimes.
