A still image from Nan Goldin’s Stendhal Syndrome, 2024, single-channel video. The work was acquired by the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn., after the AGO’s involvement fell through.Nan Goldin/Vancouver Art Gallery and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Who gets a say when a publicly funded gallery wants to buy a piece of art? The Art Gallery of Ontario’s recent failed attempt to acquire a Nan Goldin artwork was the result of a vote taken at a volunteer acquisitions committee – and led to the resignations of a curator and three of its volunteers, plus a wholesale governance review.
These committees are common at today’s large public galleries, though their function and structure are often opaque. In the Goldin case, it meant that the personal political views of a slim majority of one such committee interfered with a curator’s plan.
This was not supposed to happen, according to the AGO’s own policies. The gallery has acknowledged that personal views – in this case, about Goldin’s stand on the Israel-Hamas war – shouldn’t have steered the decision. The incident led to an 11-9 vote not to co-acquire Goldin’s Stendhal Syndrome in conjunction with galleries in Vancouver and Minneapolis, although the latter two later made the purchase without the AGO.
The subsequent governance review prompted a full reset of the AGO modern and contemporary curatorial working committee’s duties, and eventually its disbanding.
But the Toronto gallery still acquires many works through the committee-based system: It has five others, and is planning to launch two new committees to replace the disbanded group: one focused on 20th-century art, and the other focused on the 21st century. The Stendhal Syndrome saga has drawn the attention of the Canadian and international art scenes toward these committees. How do they work, and what kind of power are they supposed to have?
The Globe and Mail spoke to numerous collections professionals and consultants from Canada and the U.K. to unpack answers to these questions. They spoke in general terms about the work of these committees, rather than specifically about the AGO’s unfolding Goldin saga.
The exterior of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto on Jan. 20, 2026.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
What are volunteer acquisitions committees?
Galleries and museums bring works into their collections in many different ways, including via donations, bequests and direct purchases. Though the AGO’s major decisions are determined by a board collections committee comprising at least five trustees – with chief executive Stephan Jost and board co-presidents Liza Mauer and Beth Horowitz sitting as ex-officio members – its volunteer acquisitions committees often have ground-level discussions of a curator’s acquisition ideas before they reach the board level.
They also bring in monetary donations, giving members of the public a seat at the table in return for their cash; the AGO’s modern and contemporary committee generally had about 20 members.
At the AGO and institutions such as Britain’s Tate family of galleries, community members – often art collectors and dealers – put up cash for a chance to meet with curators and discuss potential acquisitions a few times a year. This gives the members a chance to offer input to curators for acquisitions using the money pooled from their own donations.
Some galleries use these committees to vet potential board members. Some see them as a chance to bring in market expertise – especially when the members are art dealers. At minimum, the committees are revenue drivers. They’re also a chance for patrons of a specific era, provenance or genre of art to get face time with curators who work in those specialties. Generally, the gallery’s curator assigned to that specialty is supposed to put forward potential artworks to acquire, and committee members discuss the value they could bring to the institution.
The Globe and Mail obtained an internal AGO document outlining the policies its committee members must follow. It shows that the majority of members must pay at least $5,000 each year – double that for the modern and contemporary art committee. There are several spots reserved for artists and academics, such as art historians, to bring their expertise to discussions. Those experts can request an exemption from mandated donations.
“Members can expect to be involved in the selection process of acquiring work(s) supported by their annual donation,” the internal document reads.
But for these committees to work within galleries’ public mandates, the artwork-selection process must follow clear governance rules. Is a committee a rubber stamp on a curator’s wishes? A sounding board as a curator works out what’s best for the gallery? Or a final arbiter for acquisitions?
Governance experts in Canada prefer the sounding-board approach. “The very principle of an acquisition committee is to support curatorial authority, and not displace it or replace it,” says Stephen Borys, who recently launched the arts-consulting firm Civic Muse after running the Winnipeg Art Gallery and its Inuit art centre Qaumajuq for nearly two decades.
Zainub Verjee, the executive director of Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries, an advocacy group serving public art galleries, says these committees should focus on advancing the mission of a museum or gallery. “Philanthropy can support acquisitions, but it must never purchase authority,” she says.
In an ideal world, she adds, these committees should support curators on institutional priorities, highlight gaps in a gallery’s collection, and advise on matters such as provenance, cultural sensitivity and reputational exposure for the institution.
“They are there to keep the institution’s decisions policy-aligned, ethically defensible, legally clean and publicly accountable, especially when money, tax treatment, export issues or reputational risk are in play,” Verjee says. “Put plainly: The committee helps ensure the museum can explain, years later, why the decision was responsible. Acquisitions committees should widen judgment, not relocate authority.”
How political should these committees get?
The AGO committee’s May, 2025, vote not to acquire Stendhal Syndrome came after a heated discussion over Goldin’s politics. In a speech in late 2024 at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, she shared her “moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.” She levelled criticism at Israel for the tens of thousands of deaths reported since it launched its war on Hamas in 2023, after the group’s Oct. 7 attacks, which left 1,200 dead in Israel and 251 others taken as hostages.
The Globe has previously reported that Goldin’s views prompted intense debate at the committee meeting, and that in a subsequent memo, AGO CEO Jost wrote that committee members had alleged the artist’s remarks were “offensive” and “antisemitic.”
According to Canadian governance experts, subjective views don’t belong in these discussions. “Personal politics do not run the collection,” Verjee says. Adds Borys: “If a donor’s expectation is that their politics or preferences would somehow influence or direct an acquisition conversation, then I think the governance model has failed.”
A source with direct knowledge of how the AGO’s Goldin saga unfolded said that it also was the first time they could recall a secret-ballot vote for acquiring an artwork – and that prior to this, the committee had effectively acted as a sounding board. The Globe and Mail is not naming the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Such a veto by a committee of external volunteers may have overstepped the bounds of good governance, Verjee says.
This approach, however, is not universal. The Tate, the institution and group of galleries that house the U.K.’s national collection of art, gives greater power to its volunteer acquisitions committees, says Gregor Muir, its director of collection. Its seven committees also require an upfront donation of about £12,500 ($23,150), and the 25 to 45 members on each committee meet twice a year.
The Tate’s team brings forward a list of potential acquisitions, with costs exceeding their annual budget, and the committee is tasked with deciding what to spend the money on.
Even in this context, however, political views should be put aside in the name of good governance. “Everything starts and ends with the work,” Muir says. While they inevitably vote on what gets acquired, “the focus is about the needs of the Tate’s collection. The discussion should be on whether the artwork is transformative.”
The exterior of the Vancouver Art Gallery in August, 2023.Vancouver Art Gallery
What about other Canadian galleries?
When the VAG, alongside Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center, acquired the Goldin work, it followed its standard procedure for all purchases and gifts. It takes a different approach to acquiring art, using a subcommittee of its board, which includes several trustees and outside art experts.
Their job might be described as sober second thought: They quiz curators and the gallery director – who is not a voting member – on how a proposed acquisition fits both a 130-page collections management policy and an annual plan. If possible, these discussions take place with the artwork present so that its quality and condition are evident.
“Their mandate is not to pick the artworks,” said VAG interim co-CEO Eva Respini. “Their mandate is to assure that the curators who are putting forward the artworks are making the right justifications that they can put against the collecting plan or the collection’s policy manual.” She said neither curators nor committee members are choosing art according to personal tastes or opinions, but must follow annual goals, such as acquiring more works by women, works by Indigenous people or works from temporary exhibitions.
“It really ensures that the curators aren’t just shopping, but that everything we’re buying is adhering to strategic collecting priorities,” Respini says.
All acquisitions are voted on and there is no cost to sit on the committee nor expectation that members will contribute financially to acquisitions.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, meanwhile, takes a multi-level committee approach with some similarities to the AGO. It has an internal acquisition committee chaired by the museum’s director and including curatorial and conservation staff. Its choices are then passed on to four specialized acquisition committees, covering art pre-1945; art post-1945; Quebec and Canadian art; and the decorative arts and design. They vote on all acquisitions.
Each of these committees in Montreal includes at least one board trustee as well as art experts and members of the public. There is a financial expectation, though it is not explicitly required: Committee members must “when possible, donate or sponsor the purchase of a work of art.”
With reports from Kate Taylor