Philanthropic executive Judy Schulich was first appointed to the AGO board by the Ontario government a decade ago, and was reappointed to a three-year term in 2023.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Philanthropic executive Judy Schulich has left the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario after leading efforts last year to prevent it from acquiring an artwork by photographer Nan Goldin. That decision had led to outcry across the global art world and prompted numerous resignations, including from a senior curator.
Ms. Schulich was first appointed to the AGO board by the Ontario government a decade ago, and was reappointed to a three-year term in 2023. That term expired Wednesday. In an e-mail Friday, Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming said Ms. Schulich had decided not to renew her appointment.
Ms. Schulich is a long-time art patron and an executive with the Schulich Foundation, which bills itself as one of Canada’s largest private foundations. It was seeded by her father, billionaire entrepreneur Seymour Schulich. She did not respond to a comment request on Friday.
Ms. Schulich is leaving the AGO four months after The Globe and Mail first reported that documentation showed she spearheaded a discussion focusing on Ms. Goldin’s politics at a volunteer acquisitions committee. The committee ultimately voted 11-9 not to acquire Ms. Goldin’s 2024 video work Stendhal Syndrome. Ms. Schulich was a committee member on top of being a board trustee.
An internal memo written by AGO director and chief executive Stephan Jost about the incident, which was obtained by The Globe, said that some committee members alleged the artist’s remarks were “offensive” and “antisemitic.”
After The Globe published these revelations, numerous artists and progressive Jewish organizations called for Ms. Schulich’s resignation from the AGO’s board, with more than 800 signatures appearing on an open letter with those demands. Some of the signatories listed included Ms. Goldin; now-federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis; his wife, the author and filmmaker Naomi Klein; and Jed Lind, the son of the late Phil Lind, a prominent AGO donor.
Ms. Goldin, a celebrated photographer and a long-time activist, used a late 2024 speech at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie to share her “moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.” She levelled criticism at Israel for the tens of thousands of deaths reported since the country launched its war on Hamas in 2023, after the group’s Oct. 7 attacks left 1,200 dead in Israel and saw 251 others taken as hostages.
Months after Ms. Goldin’s remarks, the Toronto gallery set out to jointly purchase Stendhal Syndrome with the Vancouver Art Gallery and Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center. The AGO stepped back from the joint acquisition in the middle of last year, however, after the volunteer committee’s vote.
A still image from Nan Goldin’s Stendhal Syndrome, 2024, single-channel video.Nan Goldin/Vancouver Art Gallery and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
The members who voted in favour of acquiring Ms. Goldin’s work felt that her remarks were not antisemitic, with some adding that “refusing the work because of the artist’s views was censorship,” according to the memo.
The AGO’s modern and contemporary curator, John Zeppetelli, who had advocated for the acquisition, eventually resigned from that full-time position in connection with the incident. (As a guest curator, he is co-curating the AGO’s Diego Marcon: The Bubble Boy exhibit opening June 3.)
Three members of the committee, which focused on modern and contemporary art, also later resigned. The incident prompted the gallery to commission a third-party governance review, which recommended a “reset” on the committee’s acquisition discussions, and “clarification” of its members’ responsibilities.
Soon after Ms. Goldin and other artists chastised the AGO over what happened, the gallery said it would dissolve the volunteer committee and create two new committees in its wake.
Stendhal Syndrome is one of Ms. Goldin’s video slide-show works, alternating photos of her friends and community with classical, Renaissance and baroque artworks. The Vancouver Art Gallery has since showcased the work and, in May, hosted an author talk with Ms. Goldin, during which she only vaguely alluded to the AGO saga.
Nan Goldin encourages activism in art, urges young people to ‘be courageous’ at Vancouver event
Ms. Schulich has a keen interest in art, having studied the market at Christie’s in New York. She has sat on numerous gallery boards. Between 2019 and 2024, she and venture capitalist David Stein jointly donated at least half a million dollars to the AGO, gallery records show. This was outside of the foundation, which has also supported the gallery.
She had also chaired the AGO’s photography acquisitions committee and collections committee.
In an e-mailed statement, Stephan Jost, the AGO’s director and chief executive, wrote: “The breadth and depth of Judy Schulich’s significant contributions have had a meaningful, positive and lasting impact on the AGO.”
Ashika Theyyil, a Culture Ministry spokesperson, said in an e-mail that “Judy has been an engaged and generous member of the board, giving her time and knowledge.”
The AGO is publicly funded, receiving $26.3-million from all three levels of government in its last reported fiscal year, the vast majority from Ontario. Monetary donations and bequests accounted for $11.4-million, and the AGO Foundation provided another $11-million.