Sutton's departure leaves the organization without any staff the same week that Casey Keeler's Ergonomicon, a show featuring work by an international group of artists, is set to open. Richter's dismissal was "weird fucking timing," Sutton said last week, given the stress of the opening and recent staff upheaval at the organization.
Richter's unexplained departure has sparked questions about the board's now unchecked power and has triggered what appears to be a united response from the art community.
In an open letter sent on Monday, February 14, to board president Robb Krieg from friendsofconworks@yahoo.com, more than 30 arts administrators, gallery owners, curators, and artists wrote that they saw ConWorks "as an extension of Matthew Richter's drive, vision, and personality" and expressed concern that there was now "no leadership with any direct operational, managerial, or fundraising experience at the organization." The letter went on: "As members of Seattle's cultural community, artists who have worked with Richter and ConWorks, and friends of the organization, we encourage the board of directors to provide a public forum where the board can explain your recent actions. We would like the board's plans for the future of ConWorks to be made public."
The letter--signed by the director of Henry Art Gallery, the director of Western Bridge, the executive director of Northwest Film Forum, the artistic director of Empty Space Theatre, the owner of James Harris Gallery, and 28 other community leaders (including The Stranger's publisher)--concluded: "Please know that Consolidated Works' many supporters hope to help assure its survival. Your willingness to provide more information is an essential starting point for our support."
Northwest Film Forum Executive Director Michael Seiwerath said he signed the letter because "there's a lot of ill will and misinformation floating around right now… I think the board should clear the air."
The board of ConWorks has a low profile and a fairly weak track record. The board's Halloween 2004 fundraiser was supposed to raise $10,000 but ended up costing the organization $2,000, sources with inside knowledge have confirmed. Only half of ConWorks' board members have been with the organization longer than a year and a half, and no one on the board has any experience running an arts organization, says Krieg (although he says that the board includes "various people who have experience in various arts organizations and have art degrees").
The board is being unspecific about their reasons for Richter's dismissal and their future plans for the organization. Matt McCarty, a lectures curator who was at the meeting last Wednesday, which the board called ostensibly to share their plans, said, "We just got a lot of, 'We're thinking about that,' 'We're considering this,' 'We're working on that,' but there was no plan… There was no sense of who's running anything."
Without any staff, Krieg is now the leader of the organization, but it is hard to find anyone particularly confident about his leadership skills--except for former Program Director Chris Weber, who quit in early January and declined to comment for this story. Sutton, the program director who quit this week, said about his working relationship with Krieg: "From an administrative standpoint, I didn't feel any leadership or any direction." Curator McCarty, expressing nervousness about ConWorks' future under the board's leadership based on the meeting they held last Wednesday, said, "You get the sense they're going to run this [organization] into the ground out of ineptitude."
Krieg insists that the board has a plan. When asked for specifics, he says that there will be a nationwide search for a new director "as soon as we hammer out a job description and decide what we want the organization to look like." He says that he is going "to work hard to make sure ConWorks stays open and stays committed to the mission" but he also says that the board will be "spending some time reevaluating the mission" along with "respected people in the art community," whom he declined to name.
According to Krieg, the letter from friendsofconworks@yahoo.com was "a very well-crafted letter" and its "points are valid" but the board "will not be holding a public forum." He said that the board has been delaying talking publicly about their reasons for dismissing Richter because they would like attention to be focused on the art show that opens this week. ConWorks' donors, members, and supporters should expect a letter describing some "high-level reasons as to why we took the actions we took" early next week, Krieg says. He adds, "I'm never going to give specifics as to why Matt left the organization."
In a strangely upbeat letter sent out last week to ConWorks' partners and supporters, Krieg referred to Richter's departure as an "important leadership transition" and then listed the organization's accomplishments under Richter's stewardship--acquiring its giant facility, raising huge amounts of capital, retiring the organization's debt, presenting critically celebrated art, and commissioning award-winning theater.
The future of ConWorks' programming is still unclear, but one thing is certain: the parties aren't going to be what they used to be. The band Awesome, scheduled to play at the opening of Casey Keeler's show this Friday, has pulled their involvement because, as band member Evan Mosher explained in an e-mail, "We felt that without Matt Richter there, ConWorks wasn't a place we wanted to perform. We really didn't want to offer any energy to what might feel like a heartless party in the shell of a place we love. And we agreed that we were more interested in maintaining a working relationship with Matt than with whatever the organization will become without him."
Mosher added, "We're just the first batch of MANY artists in Seattle who won't want to show at ConWorks if Matt Richter isn't around."
