4 hours ago
5
Devyani Saltzman is leaving the Barbican as the arts institution undergoes another significant leadership change just a few weeks after its new CEO joined.
The shock departure of Saltzman, who became director of arts and participation at the Barbican in February 2024, comes months after she unveiled a five-year creative vision for the venue.
Saltzman was named recently as one of the 40 most influential women working in the arts in the UK, and was described as the “driving force behind the organisation”.
The Barbican refused to confirm the exit, with a spokesperson telling the Guardian it would be “unable to comment on individual staffing matters”.
It is unclear when Saltzman will leave the organisation and there are no plans to replace her.
The departure will leave a vacuum at the top of the Barbican. Saltzman’s role involved curation of the artistic programme at the centre and community engagement, and in the last 18 months she had become its public face, laying out her vision in several interviews.
She was vocal about the need for London’s cultural institutions to have leadership reflecting the diverse city they inhabit. “We are actually in a new wave of next-generation leadership that hopefully is going to shift the model,” she said in 2024.
The organisation has had several changes over the past five years. In 2021, Nicholas Kenyon resigned after 14 years as managing director after staff told the Guardian that the Barbican was “institutionally racist”. He was followed by the former BBC arts correspondent Will Gompertz, who left to join Sir John Soane’s Museum after being in the job for only two years.
Saltzman was one of seven senior leaders installed after the Barbican replaced the managing director model. They all report to the chief executive, Abigail Pogson, who started last month.
Saltzman joined during a row caused by the Barbican backing out of hosting a talk by Pankaj Mishra about the Holocaust and allegations that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. The decision resulted in several artists pulling their work out of an exhibition at the venue.
One of her first acts was to speak to Mishra, and she has been seen as a figure who helped repair trust between the organisation and sections of the artistic community.
Pogson, who joined from the Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead, is overseeing the first major renewal work in the venue’s history, involving a 12-month closure of its theatre, music venue and galleries from June 2028. The first phase of the project will cost £231m and the overall bill is estimated to be £451m.
Opened in 1982, the Barbican arts centre is a unique cultural institution. The centre’s cultural offering was originally designed primarily for the 4,000 residents of the flats set around the site. Today, more than 1.5 million people visit annually, making it one of the most popular cultural attractions in the UK.
