Trouble at the mill ... Gateshead's Baltic. Photograph: David Sillitoe
When Peter Doroshenko took up the position as the Baltic art centre's director in October 2005, he vowed to alter the building's rather frosty customer relations, stating: "We need to hug each individual visitor." Anyone who found the idea of being embraced by a middle-aged Chicagoan curator a little alarming can now relax - he's gone, becoming the troubled centre's third head to exit in less than five years since it opened.
Last winter, Doroshenko attempted to revive Baltic's flagging reputation with a show called Spank the Monkey, billed as the largest survey of urban graffiti art ever staged. It featured a skate ramp installed in the gallery, and a trail of street art around Newcastle, navigable by text messaging. In defence of the excruciating title, Doroshenko said: "It's all about breaking genres in the art world by throwing out a name that's really in your face", which sounded horribly like an over-eager dad failing to grasp the difference between tagging and tagging along. Yet the real indicator of where things were heading was the series of x-rated action shots by Japanese photographer Yasumasa Yonehara, entailed Get Naked and Bend Over! I'm Serious! which seemed to indicate that the fastest way to become edgy and in-your-face is by displaying low-grade pornographic rubbish.
Alarmingly, Yonehara's photos weren't a one-off. Baltic's current exhibition is the first UK show by Kendall Geers who, according to the publicity material, "pushes the limits of accepted moral codes of sexuality and violence." Before that, there was the Liverpool-based artist Linder, who makes montages out of images from adult magazines. And prior to Doroshenko's departure he had announced a blockbuster retrospective of Jeff Koons, whose action figures of himself and his porn-star wife Ilona "La Cicciolina" Staller could form a prominent part.
Doroshenko has clearly done his best to attract a new audience for a cash-strapped organisation, whose visitor numbers have fallen below 500,000 per year. Yet devoting the entire gallery to the paintings of Beryl Cook, meanwhile, seemed a last-ditch attempt to court the popular vote. And whatever your thoughts about Cook's eligibility, serious questions have to be asked about inviting the artist's commercial dealer to curate the exhibition.
It may be that Doroshenko's departure has ultimately been hastened by the wrangle between the Northumberland police and Sir Elton John. Displaying Sir Elton's personal collection of the works of New York photographer Nan Goldin must have seemed an ideal way of making Baltic more broadminded and popular. That was before gallery staff deemed a picture of Goldin's children to be offensive and called the police. Even though the image was eventually declared to be harmless, Sir Elton himself decided he didn't need the bad publicity, and demanded that the exhibition be closed nine days after it had opened.
It's just the latest of a run of bizarre scandals that have enveloped Baltic since it opened. The previous director, Stephen Snoddy, was arrested in his office on a sexual assault charge, which was proved unfounded, though he declined to return. His predecessor, Sune Nordgren, exited with two years of his contract still to run, following criticism of a programme biased towards obscure Scandinavian artists and a leaked arts council document that indicated the building's finances were in chaos.
Nordgren declared that he didn't care how many visitors Baltic attracted. Now Doroshenko's policy of embracing everyone individually has apparently only succeeded in putting more people off. Yet Baltic's revolving door underlines the tendency for high-profile positions on Tyneside to carry such massive pressure of expectation that it inevitably leads to disappointment. What Baltic desperately needs now is someone who can avoid alienating Geordies sufficiently to stay in position for longer than 18 months. How about Sam Allardyce, as soon as he becomes available?
