Museum Leader Who Resigned Calls Controversy a ‘Misunderstanding’

Known as one of the most influential figures in the world of international contemporary art, Ms. Ruf was hired to run the Stedelijk in 2014. Her tenure has been distinguished by critically acclaimed programming and an ambitious collaboration with the renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to redesign the museum’s layout to better present its permanent collection.

Ms. Ruf’s sudden departure, accompanied by only very general public statements from Stedelijk officials and, until now, just a single quote from Ms. Ruf in a news release, had cast a shadow on her reputation and left lingering concerns about the Stedelijk board’s ability to govern with transparency. The situation has also raised broader questions about the accountability of government-owned Dutch cultural institutions, which are substantially funded by the state and owe the public explanations of their policies and practices.

Ms. Ruf agreed to an exclusive interview by email with The Times, saying that she hoped to clarify her role in what she called a “misunderstanding.” She advised that her responses would be vetted by her lawyers before being sent to The Times.

All of her side activities were “contractually approved by the Stedelijk” before she took the job, Ms. Ruf wrote. Throughout her responses, she said several times, “I am confident that I reported everything in good faith.”

Madeleine de Cock Buning, the acting chairwoman of the museum’s supervisory board was forwarded Ms. Ruf’s comments and replied by email saying that the board had begun two independent investigations. “We have decided not to answer questions of the media while the investigations are going on,” she added.

Ms. Ruf, who was born in Singen, Germany, and who worked as a curator and choreographer, mostly in Switzerland, came to the Stedelijk from the Kunsthalle Zurich, where in 12 years as director she made a name for herself by mounting cutting-edge exhibitions by artists such as Trisha Donnelly, Wade Guyton and Seth Price.

Mark Reutter, who was chairman of the Kunsthalle’s board at the time, said that her contract with the Kunsthalle allowed her to do outside work as an art adviser and consultant. The Kunsthalle does not have its own collection and does not purchase artworks, so there was no potential conflict of interest.

Ms. Ruf’s primary side activity while employed by the Kunsthalle was working as a salaried art adviser to the wealthy Swiss publisher and art collector Michael Ringier, who, over 20 years, collected a trove of more than 4,000 works of contemporary art with Ms. Ruf’s help.

When she was offered the job at the Stedelijk, Ms. Ruf wanted to continue this kind of art advisory work, she said, adding that she had sought and received approval from the museum’s board to do so. She said she then established Currentmatters for this purpose.

Photo

The Stedelijk’s most recent annual report lists 18 “additional functions” that Ms. Ruf provided, such as acting as a jurist for international art prizes, advising or serving on boards of art institutions in Moscow, Rome, Vienna and Dhaka, Bangladesh, and advising the American bank Goldman Sachs on their corporate art collection in London.

Benno Tempel, director of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, said that he felt it was acceptable for museum directors to sit on juries and boards, but “if there’s money involved, that money should go to the institution.”

Jo Houben, director of the Dutch nonprofit organization Culture+Entrepreneurship, which established a local code of ethics for arts professionals in the Netherlands, said that any side activities that benefit an individual rather than the institution they work for is not consistent with the code’s principles.

“But there’s a big difference if the board allowed her to do that and they knew what was happening,” he added. “If the supervisory board allowed the director to do something, and it turns out to be not a good choice, then the board may have to resign.”

Mr. Houben added that the Stedelijk building is owned by the city of Amsterdam, and the city and the Dutch state finance the institution. “So if you work there you have to be aware that you work with public money and behind the public money are public values, and that means you work for the public and not for your private interest,” he said.

Under a rule in the code of ethics called “comply or explain,“ he added, it’s fine for an organization to make its own special arrangements that deviate from the code, but the document recommends that the institution inform the public about it in its annual report or some other public document. “I don’t see any place where the board communicates that they don’t follow the code,” Mr. Houben said.

In 2015, Currentmatters reported a profit of about $500,000 to the Dutch tax authorities, but Ms. Ruf said that the number was misleading: “Many people wrongly assumed these profits came from side activities conducted in 2015 while I was artistic director of the Stedelijk Museum,” she said. “In fact, this profit statement reflects legitimate income from activities conducted before 2015, primarily a parting bonus for past work from the Ringier Collection in the amount of 1 million Swiss Francs.”

Ms. Ruf said that her actual earnings from “approved side activities” were 104,000 euros, or around $120,000, per year in 2015 and 2016. She said that the €378,000 she reported in 2015, and €628,000 that she earned in 2016 came from “activities conducted before 2015,” and primarily reflected the bonus from Mr. Ringier. On Wednesday, Ms. Ruf is required to report her 2016 earnings to the Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands and these figure will become publicly available.

Mr. Ringier confirmed in a phone interview that he had given Ms. Ruf the “thank you gift” of 1 million francs, paid in installments over 2015 and 2016. He said that he did this because Ms. Ruf added value “in the tens of millions or even hundreds of millions” to his collection.

“The money that I think everybody talks about in this company is the money she got for the 20 years of work for us,” Mr. Ringier said. “It had nothing to do with an ongoing advisorship.”

“We absolutely wanted to avoid a conflict of interest,” Mr. Ringier said.

Even though Ms. Ruf said the Stedelijk’s board had approved her side activities for the Ringier collection, she said that she and Mr. Ringier decided it would be best if they no longer worked together, and she sent her last invoice in December 2014.

The Stedelijk’s board did not respond to questions about whether Ms. Ruf reported to the museum that she received the bonus from Mr. Ringier. Ms. Ruf declined to comment on that question.

In spite of what she said were efforts to report everything in good faith, questions remained about whether her arrangement with the Stedelijk from the beginning followed international and national codes of ethics.

Mijntje Lückerath-Rovers, a professor of corporate governance at Tilburg University and the chairman of the committee that drafted the code of ethics for arts professionals in the Netherlands, said in a phone interview, “If there was some logical explanation, they could have said, ‘Sorry that we were not that transparent in the beginning, we now want to be as transparent as possible, and here is what happened.’ ” In that case, she said, Ms. Ruf could have kept her job.

The absence of any such explanation “does give the outside world, including me, the idea that something is not completely right,” Professor Lückerath-Rovers said. “From my perspective, transparency is lacking here and that’s the most important thing, especially because you’re working with public money.”

Continue reading the main story