ICA San Diego Closes Main Campus, Faces Staff Exodus

(MENAFN- USA Art News) The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego (ICA) has closed its main campus in Balboa Park after laying off nearly half its workforce, comprising eight staff members, between July 29 and August 16. The affected employees included the museum's sole curator and its director of learning and engagement. The institution cited an ongoing financial crisis, while its director of operations also resigned on July 29.

A letter of no confidence, sent to the ICA board on August 19 by a group of current and former staff members, calls for the removal of museum director Andrew Utt. The letter, which was shared with The Art Newspaper, includes a financial analysis of the museum's publicly available tax documents for 2022, 2023, and 2024. It identifies three consecutive years of increasing financial instability under Utt's leadership, characterized by unpaid bills, bounced checks, and delayed payments, which have left the museum“unable to meet payroll, maintain staffing or sustain its public-facing operations.”

According to employees, a focus on“revenue generation” led to strained relationships between operational staff and executive leadership, prompting questions about the beneficiaries of this revenue. Dianna Elizardo, a former ICA employee, told The Art Newspaper:“We've all witnessed the erosion of the focus and commitment to art and artists within the organisation, and we've had to fight hard to keep our basic identity as a space that actually supports artists. It's Utt's hastily produced solutions that put staff departments in competition for resources, and that's problematic for events and exhibits.”

The ICA board confirmed receipt of the letter in an email to The Art Newspaper, stating that it is responding directly to the signatories. A representative added:“The board is meeting regularly and is taking an active role in the organisation's oversight. We have engaged outside counsel and begun a review of our finances and governance.” Utt, when contacted for comment, affirmed his support for the board's statement.

Due to these developments, the museum's current exhibition,“Cat Gunn: if only by the light of a new moon,” closed a month earlier than its scheduled date of September 13. Artist Cat Gunn stated that they were not informed of the decision. Gunn also reported extremely late payments, poor communication, and last-minute logistical changes by executive leadership that significantly altered the exhibition's nature.

Under their yearlong artist-in-residence contract, Gunn was promised a monthly stipend of $500 from January to December 2025. Gunn stated that the initial payment for materials and supplies was six months late, delaying the start of their residency until July 2025, when five months of payments were issued in a single bulk payment. Subsequent payments were irregular and not fully completed until December, according to Gunn. Utt reportedly informed Gunn that the ICA was experiencing a“financial crisis.” While Gunn praised the curatorial team, they found“the instability of the institution itself as an entity was very jarring, and I felt like I was being jerked around.”

Both Gunn and former staff members allege that Utt's decisions have placed them in financially precarious situations. Staff members claim that their final paychecks have been either delayed, bounced, or entirely withheld. Under California state labor law, discharged employees are legally entitled to receive all accrued wages, including vacation pay, immediately upon termination. Affected ICA employees have filed claims with the state's Department of Industrial Relations Labor Commission.

Following earlier layoffs at ICA's Encinitas campus in the autumn and winter of 2025, remaining staff were expected to absorb the duties of terminated employees. For several years, the visitor experience team also took on installation and exhibition responsibilities without additional compensation, effectively doubling their workload. Concurrently, the education and events teams were tasked with maintaining full operations despite substantial cuts to program funding.

Elizardo emphasized the broader need for worker protections in museums, asking:“What might it look like to have a museum workers' union for San Diego at large?”

The ICA's satellite campus in Encinitas and its outdoor public Sculpture Trail remain open for art classes.

Source: The Art Newspaper

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