Brown University Furloughs Bell Gallery Curators, Rankling Faculty

According to two curators with the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who were on vacation on December 4 art news. Kate Kraczon, Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator, and Thea Quiray Tagle, Associate Curator, will serve until early 2026.

The Bell showcases contemporary art and is part of the Brown Institute for the Arts. The university faces a severe financial crisis, leading to layoffs and other austerity measures.

Kraczon was hired in 2019 after 11 years as associate curator at the School of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. There she supported emerging artists, notably curating “Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson: Easternsports” (2014) and “Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: The Incidental Insurgents” (2015). The 2018 exhibition “Ree Morton: Plants That Are Both Healing and Potentially Poisonous” won the inaugural Sotheby’s Award for “Breakthrough Exhibition” and art forum‘s “Best of 2018” issue.

Previously independent, Tagle co-curated the inaugural contemporary photography triennial New York Now: Home (2023) at the Museum of the City of New York and has curated exhibitions for institutions such as the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; the Vachon Gallery at Seattle University; and the San Francisco Arts Council Gallery.

The school has not publicly mentioned Classon and Tagle’s leave. Sydney Skybetter, dean of the Brown School of the Arts, directed an interview request to Brian E. Clark, the university’s vice president for communications. Clark said in an email that the school could not comment on personnel matters, but noted that “The Bell Gallery remains an important public art space on the Brown campus and for programs in the Brown School of the Arts. Its permanent collection of works and exhibitions of visiting artists will continue to be open to the campus community and the public.” He noted that Brown eliminated 55 vacant budget positions in the fall and implemented layoffs that affected 48 employees in multiple departments across campus. position “as part of broader financial measures to offset anticipated losses to Brown’s budget due to ongoing federal impacts.”

Two Brown faculty members said privately that faculty were surprised by the decision and could not get a clear explanation from the administration about the reasoning behind it, other than citing austerity policies. Art students and teachers use the Bell Gallery extensively as part of their courses, faculty said. It’s apparently unclear who will be responsible for future programming, and Clark did not immediately respond to an email asking who would be responsible for programming.

The Bell Museum, named after an alumnus in 1954, houses more than 7,000 works of art dating from the 16th century to the present day, with a focus on modern and contemporary works on paper. Including artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Rina Banerjee, Chitra Ganesh and Nari Ward, the gallery’s website highlights Sadie Barnette, Martine Gutierrez and Deana Lawson Lawson’s recent acquisitions. It opened in 1971 in the Albert and Vera List Arts Building designed by Philip Johnson.

The most recent listed exhibition, a work by Eric-Paul Riege, closed in early December. Its last exhibition reproduces artist Julien Creuzet’s project for the French Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, which originated in 2020 and was co-commissioned by Bell and the Center National d’Art Contemporain Grenoble. In 2022, the Bell Museum presented the critically acclaimed traveling exhibition “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” exploring the impact of the U.S. prison system on contemporary art, curated by MacArthur “genius” grant curator Nicole R. Fleetwood. Other recent exhibitions have focused on artists such as Barbara T. Smith and Carrie Mae Weems.

Although not publicized on Bell’s website, sources with knowledge of the gallery’s programming revealed that its next exhibition will be “Prisoners of Love” by Palestinian duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme. The exhibition is currently on display at Nottingham Contemporary in the UK and will be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona this year.

Bell’s exhibition won support from high-profile funders. The Riger exhibition is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Terra Foundation for American Art, while the Kreuzer exhibition is supported by the Warhol and Tiger Foundations, Villa Albertine and the Académie Française. The Bell show has been covered by publications including allergic and Art 21.

News of Brown’s furlough announcement comes two years after the opening of the high-tech, 101,000-square-foot Lindemann Center for the Performing Arts. While the construction budget has not been made public, two sources within the university revealed art news The cost is said to be $500 million. Designed by Joshua Ramus, founder of New York-based REX Corporation, the facility is named for Frayda B. Lindemann and her late husband, George Lindemann Sr. George Lindemann Sr. is a billionaire art collector and chairman and CEO of fossil fuel infrastructure and pipeline company Southern Union. Some of their children attend Brown University. (Their son Adam is a prominent New York art collector who closed his New York gallery, Venus Over Manhattan, in 2025 after 14 years.)

The school reportedly said it faced a deficit of about $30 million in fiscal year 2026 and, in addition to layoffs, also sold some real estate assets Forbes October. The school had previously imposed a hiring freeze and implemented pay cuts for some senior staff. Last year, the company originated approximately $800 million in loans.

The news comes after several tense and traumatic months on campus, in addition to the financial crisis. The school is one of several elite universities under pressure from the Trump administration to abide by its preferences on subjects such as transgender athletes and programs supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. The administration has accused the school of not adequately combating anti-Semitism during pro-Palestinian protests, as it has done with other universities, and withheld millions of dollars in federal medical and health science research funding to exert influence. In July, the school signed an agreement with the administration.

“In discussions with the administration, the university’s top priority is to stay true to our academic mission, our core values, and our identity as a Brown community,” University President Christina H. Paxson wrote. “This is reflected in key provisions of the resolution agreement, which preserve our academic independence and commit to disburse $50 million in grants over 10 years to Rhode Island’s workforce development organizations, consistent with our mission of service and community engagement.”

The government’s readings are, of course, completely different. “The Trump administration is successfully reversing a decades-long state of disenchantment in our nation’s higher education institutions,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

Then, on December 13, a gunman entered a classroom at Brown University, killed two people, wounded nine others, and then fled the campus. After a week-long manhunt, police discovered the killer’s body in a New Hampshire storage unit. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The killer is also believed to have killed an MIT professor who was killed in his home two days after Brown’s shooting.