New National Gallery CEO hopes to turn institutional turmoil into 'opportunities'

The incoming director and CEO of the National Gallery of Canada doesn't want to discuss its tumultuous recent years before his arrival next month, but says any problems can be made into opportunities, they're never as bad as they seem, and that lots of communication will be key.

Jean-François Bélisle starts July 17. He will serve a five-year term as the head of the gallery, replacing Angela Cassie, who has been interim director and CEO since June 2022.

Bélisle comes to the gallery from Musée d'art de Joliette in Quebec, where he worked as executive director and chief curator.

Asked Friday about friction over changes at the National Gallery of Canada, concerns about staff departures, unfilled positions and low morale, Bélisle said it's hard to read from outside the institution and that he'd rather not try until he gets there.

"Ultimately, all of these things can be transformed into opportunities if they're handled properly, if the humans involved are motivated and want to try to fix problems — if there are problems, because I don't even know from the outside," he told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning.

"They're never as bad as they seem. They can always be turned into very, very positive things."

LISTEN | Jean-François Bélisle's June 9 interview with Ottawa Morning

More communication with and among staff, and more voices at the table, will be essential, he said.

"I would even dare to say that it often solves 60 per cent of the problems just once ... people start talking."

Over the past two years, the National Gallery of Canada has faced public criticism and scrutiny from current and former staff.

• In November 2022, five months after the early departure of ex-CEO Sasha Suda, the gallery let go of four senior staff members, including Greg Hill, its longtime Indigenous art curator. In a statement posted to social media after his dismissal, Hill said he was "deeply disturbed by the colonial and anti-Indigenous ways the department of Indigenous ways and decolonization is being run."
• Later that month, seven former gallery members expressed their concerns about the staff changes in an open letter sent to Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. The letter said the recent departures, along with previous dismissals, created a "high degree of internal uncertainty and instability" at the gallery. 
• The interim director at the time told CBC the staff departures reflected a need for change, adding the gallery was welcoming new members who had been "historically excluded from this institution." 
• Earlier this year, the gallery's leaders said the art institution was making strides in decolonizing its collection and attracting first-time visitors.

Asked about decolonization efforts, Bélisle recounted a situation his current gallery faced in 2020, when an Indigenous woman, Joyce Echaquan, died in a hospital one kilometre away from the gallery after livestreaming abusive remarks directed toward her by hospital staff.

A Quebec coroner's report later concluded that the racism and prejudice Echaquan faced in the hospital contributed to her death.

The case shocked people across the country, and it was very personal to staff at the museum, Bélisle said, some of whom suggested "knee-jerk reactions" like shutting the museum down for a week or a month, or taking down every piece of work done by non-Indigenous artists.

The museum eventually realized "it was not for us to react" and decide what to do, given that there weren't enough people at the table, and those who were came from similar education and research backgrounds, Bélisle said.

So they reached out to the local Indigenous friendship centre, which decided it wanted "to build bridges and not burn bridges, not shut down the museum," he recalled.

The museum commissioned a mural in collaboration with the friendship centre, illustrating Echaquan and her husband, Carol Dubé, as bears standing tall beside nine cubs, representing their seven children and two grandchildren.

"This ... diversity of voices and making sure everyone is sitting around the table ensures that the message and that the solution found is that much stronger. And I think that's extremely important," Bélisle said.