MMOCA director announces departure

The director who led the reopening of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art as the COVID-19 pandemic wound down and endured controversy surrounding an exhibition showcasing the work of Black female artists is stepping down.

The museum announced Tuesday that Christina Brungardt, the organization’s Gabriele Haberland director for the past three years, is leaving to take a position with an arts organization in Texas.

In an interview Friday, MMOCA board president Colin Good praised Brungardt as “a transformative figure” for the museum who is “bright and hard-working,” and said her plans to depart Nov. 17 came as a surprise.

“Christina has done such a wonderful job as the director, and she’s really ushered in so many different changes,” including streamlining some administrative functions and standardizing financial compensation for exhibiting artists, Good said.

Brungardt did not respond to requests Friday for an interview.

In addition to its shimmering architectural presence at the corner of East Johnson and North Henry streets, MMOCA organizes the huge Art Fair on the Square, held each July on Capitol Square, as well as the annual citywide Spring and Fall Gallery Nights. The 2023 Fall Gallery Night is scheduled for next Friday, Nov. 3. 

Good said the museum has not set a timeline for selecting a new director.

“I think any time you have a change in leadership, the organization is placed to analyze and self-reflect on the things it does and needs to do better, and certainly that will be a component of … this transition,” he said.

Exactly what the museum should do better “is a conversation that’s just started,” he said.

Brungardt came to MMOCA in August 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when windows at the museum and the adjoining Overture Center for the Arts were clad in plywood after racial justice protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Brungardt curated five exhibitions, added works by artists such as Mel Chin, Hannah Price and Paul Mpagi Sepuya to the museum’s collection, installed the stone counter-monument by UW-Madison professor and artist Faisal Abdu’Allah that stands in front of the building, and added a Teen Forum to the museum’s youth education programming, according to press release from MMOCA.

“(S)he’s really done a wonderful job of transforming the type of work that we have come in, and the type of engagement we have with contemporary and modern art,” Good said, noting that he hopes the next director will continue on with that work.

The museum also secured a 10-year reaccreditation with the American Alliance of Museums under Brungardt’s guidance.

In recent years, however, some museum supporters have expressed disappointment in the 2021 closure of the Fresco rooftop restaurant, the dismantling of the museum’s gift shop — a once-sparkling presence in the windows along State Street — and a reduction in gallery hours.

MMOCA also received widespread attention when artists featured in the museum’s prestigious 2022 Triennial — a guest-curated show titled “Ain’t I a Woman?” and designed to showcase the work of Black women and femme artists from across Wisconsin — pulled their artworks from the museum and demanded Brungardt’s resignation. The artists issued a letter decrying what they called the “shameful mistreatment of the Black artists, contractors, and staffers throughout the exhibition.”

Many of those complaints stemmed from a March 2022 incident involving Madison artist Lilada Gee, who reported that she had been confronted and barred from the museum by a white worker from the adjacent Overture Center. Three months later, Gee’s work in “Ain’t I a Woman,” left unfinished in the gallery as a statement about the March incident, was defaced by visitors.

The MMOCA board expressed full support of Brungardt and her staff in the wake of the incidents. Good said Friday that the 2022 episode did not have a lasting impact on the museum.

Karin Wolf, arts program administrator for the city of Madison, said Friday that she believes Brungardt’s departure “will be an opportunity for some reconciliation.”

“I think that there was division in our community because of how the incident with the Triennial was handled,” Wolf said. “There are still people telling me that they’re still not going to MMOCA, they’re still not renewing their memberships.”

“To me, that’s still a division. It burdened my heart — that the arts community, the people who love the arts, were still feeling this tension,” Wolf said.

Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus, on Friday called MMOCA “an invaluable part of the visual artistic community in Madison.”

Phone and email requests for comment from several other members of the MMOCA board and the larger visual arts community were not returned Friday.

Brungardt succeeded longtime MMOCA director Stephen Fleischman, who during a nearly 30-year tenure helped the nonprofit grow from the former Madison Arts Center to the 51,500-square-foot, Cesar Pelli-designed building at 227 State St. Admission to the museum is free.

The facility originally included a popular museum gift shop featuring artisan works and other curated items. That area has since been transformed into an exhibition and community engagement space dubbed “The Shop.”

When asked whether the retail gift store might return under a new director, Good replied that the MMOCA board “is always assessing its programming, facilities and accommodations.”

MMOCA is on sound financial footing, but budget numbers were not immediately available, Good said.

The museum does not plan to host a holiday art and gift fair this year as it did in some years past, said MMOCA communications director Andrew Rogers.

As for the museum’s next steps, “That’s a conversation that the executive committee and the wider board are having right now,” Good said.

“Our hope is to have a process in place soon, so that we can announce our intentions to take whatever steps necessary to find that next executive director that’s just as good as Christina has been.”