The Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art (MMK), according to employees, has allegedly created a toxic work environment for its employees for the second consecutive time.
A six-page letter signed by around 80 percent of the staff reiterated grievances against the toxic workplace environment that were first made in 2019, when the museum’s director, Susanne Pfeffer, was only a year into her tenure. The new letter contained allegations of abuse and poor management and an asymmetrical power dynamics with institutional leadership. Some of the accusations were directed at Pfeffer.
According to the German outlet FAZPfeffer received the anonymous internal letter on April 5th with a request for its contents to be addressed within two weeks.
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“Regular border crossings and complete disregard for the needs of employees,” the letter says, led to “a waste of skills and also to a blatant loss of motivation up to physical and mental disorders such as anxiety and permanent sleep disorders.”
“We are willing to work with you to solve the problems,” it continues. Employees published their concerns after the museum leadership failed respond within the deadline.
Poor management of museum programming is one of the grievances. Signatories claim that decisions regarding exhibitions are made behind closed door, with no input from staff. “Exhibition or project-related planning,” the letter says, “is largely absent or are subject to constant revision.”
ARTnewsFor a comment, he reached out to Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art
In a statement FAZPfeffer claimed that she had published an interne response on May 13 detailing the strong structural reforms that she was planning to implement.
A veteran of Germany’s art community, Pfeffer was the curator of Anne Imhof’s Golden Lion–winning presentation at the German Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. She was named director of the MMK in 2017 following a tenure as head of Kassel’s Fridericianum.
In 2019, she curated “Museum,” a well-received show at the MMK that sought “in a time of constant change and the attending sense of powerlessness,” to propose a new institutional structure based on activism, protest, and inclusivity. Last year, with Anna Sailer, she organized “Crip Time,” an acclaimed survey focused on the “vulnerability of our bodies as something constitutive.”
