Trouble at mill ... the Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art in Newcastle. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
Unhappy office workers may fantasise about a career in the arts, which they envisage being free from frustrating bureaucracy, stifling routine and tyrannical bosses. But this romantic vision of unhampered creative expression and intellectual exchange can often be a chimera, as demonstrated by last week's news in The Times that a resolution of no confidence was issued to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art's director Peter Doroshenko by 46 members of his staff.
In the resolution, the staff described Ukrainian-American director Doroshenko's management style during his two-year tenure as "intolerable" and "bullying". He has denied the charges, but a few days after the newspaper report appeared Doreshenko apologised to staff, saying he was "sorry" that his management style had upset people.
The document criticized Doroshenko, who is also president of the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev, for investing too much of his time curating the much-hyped Ukrainian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale instead of attending to his duties at the Baltic. At the same time that Doroshenko was distracted from his responsibilities as director, the resolution asserts, he ignored or undermined the curatorial staff's input in making curatorial decisions concerning the Baltic. In response, Sir Ian Wrigglesworth, the chairman of the arts centre, has commissioned an outside human resources specialist to survey the situation and meet with staff. One hopes that the situation will be resolved as elegantly, fairly and quickly as possible.
No one should really be surprised to find that difficult bosses are said to exist in every profession, but still it's disheartening to hear that this institution's situation reached a point where staff felt that it had to take such drastic measures.
As anyone who has been in academia knows, arenas that encourage liberated intellectual or creative expression are hardly havens from petty infighting, trivial nastiness and unbridled arrogance. It has been aptly observed that when the stakes are small, the battles get bloodier.
Art should be an area where polite social guidelines aren't necessary, but abuses of power are never acceptable. Considering what a small community the international art world actually is, and how many practical sacrifices most of its members make to contribute to it, the art world needs to defend itself against anyone who belittles, exploits or tyrannises its more vulnerable members. So the outcome of the Baltic's independent review will matter.
Art world authorities, like others, should be guided by Thomas Jefferson's wise observation: "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." A lesson in there for everyone - curators and directors included.
