‘No notice': Union slams SFMOMA's surprise layoffs as museum cites financial strain
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art laid off 29 employees, sparking sharp backlash from workers and their representatives.
The layoffs, announced Wednesday, May 7, constitute about 7.5% of SFMOMA's workforce and include more than two dozen union members.
'SFMOMA is laying off 26 union members today with no notice,' the union said.
It called on staff to wear black and protest at a scheduled all-staff meeting scheduled for Thursday, May 8, urging the museum to 'CUT FROM THE TOP' instead of front-line workers.
SFMOMA Director Christopher Bedford acknowledged the job cuts in a letter to the community, describing the decision as 'difficult' but necessary.
'We continue to grapple with some hard realities,' Bedford wrote, citing persistent declines in attendance and broader financial challenges.
He said the museum is adapting to a 'new normal' of roughly 600,000 annual visitors, down from pre-pandemic levels (SFMOMA counted 892,000 visitors in 2019), and must scale back accordingly.
The reduction in staff affected union and non-union employees, and included 20 full-time and nine part-time roles. Thirteen vacant or soon-to-be-vacant positions were also eliminated.
The museum noted that 'enhanced' severance packages were offered to union employees.
In November 2023, SFMOMA cut 20 positions, citing a 35% drop in attendance since 2019.
Despite popular recent exhibitions, including shows by Yayoi Kusama and Ruth Asawa, and its annual Art Bash fundraiser generating more than $2 million in April, Bedford emphasized that tourism and foot traffic downtown remain sluggish. He said that museum leaders are exploring new revenue streams and hoping to grow philanthropic support.
'As these efforts take root, we must continue to be vigilant about our budget and make critical decisions to reduce costs and scale the institution in alignment with our current context,' Bedford said. 'Those reductions, unfortunately, include expenses both unrelated and related to our staff.'
The union's bargaining team met Wednesday afternoon to demand answers, saying it will 'begin our fight back on these unjustified layoffs.'
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Earlier this week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, originally expected to open in 2023, announced another delay until 2026 and confirmed it had already cut a significant portion of its full-time team. Likewise, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently laid off 29 staff amid a projected $5 million deficit. Theaters in Berkeley and Los Angeles have, in recent years, suspended seasons or warned of closure. Even the Philadelphia Orchestra has experienced ongoing difficulties since merging with its performing arts center to remain solvent in 2021. Across the country, cultural institutions are shrinking, consolidating, or disappearing. Amid this physical disappearing is also a philosophical one: Many institutions have lost clarity about whom they serve or why they exist. The League of American Orchestras offers a clear example. Over the past decade, the League has received nearly $1.2 million from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), much of it in support of initiatives centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through programs like the Catalyst Fund, Inclusive Stages, and the League's Equity Resource Center, the League has framed DEI not as one priority among others, but as the defining lens for how orchestras should understand their purpose, their audiences, and their internal structures. Increasingly, the work of cultural institutions justifies itself through language and policy frameworks that are largely internal to the field. The link between funding and the public has frayed. Federal programs have mirrored that drift. The NEA's grant language in recent years emphasized 'capacity building,' 'access strategies,' and 'administrative equity plans.' ArtsHERE, launched in 2023, directed over $12 million toward 'equity-centered frameworks,' focused more on internal processes than public-facing work. The long-term cultural impact of these efforts remains unclear. But that approach is now being reassessed. Whether or not the Trump administration succeeds in eliminating the NEA and other cultural agencies, the programs funded via these agencies are no longer assumed to reflect the public interest. For the first time in years, there is an opening to reconsider how public funding in the arts should be used and what it should be used for. Some ventures already point the way. The Lamp, founded in 2020, is a journal of Catholic arts and letters supported by a small team and the Catholic University of America. It has built a national readership through editorial seriousness and clarity of purpose. Wiseblood Books, founded in 2013, is a small Southern press publishing fiction, poetry, and monographs grounded in craft and moral imagination. Both have earned attention through focus and substance, despite working with limited resources. They show what becomes possible when good work is pursued steadily and with conviction. Yet efforts like these remain rare. One way to replicate these efforts would be for the NEA to create its own cultural accelerator—a short-term program focused on helping serious new institutions take root. The model exists in other fields. Y Combinator, one of the best-known startup incubators, has launched companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe by offering early-stage ventures structure, mentorship, and a public debut. The goal is to help founders establish the conditions for something lasting. Such a model could serve the arts. Each year, a small cohort of groups could be selected based on artistic merit, public purpose, and clarity of vision. These might include a regional theater company, a music ensemble, a press, or a journal of letters and criticism. Participants would receive direct support for legal incorporation, fiscal sponsorship, board development, and strategic planning. They would also receive modest seed funding to design their first season, publication cycle, or exhibition. Finally, each group would be formally launched in partnership with a national institution, giving them public validation and immediate reach. These public partnerships would be particularly critical, as they would give new ventures a clear point of entry into cultural life. A chamber ensemble might debut at the Kennedy Center. A press could collaborate with the Library of Congress to republish forgotten works. A community archive might curate an exhibition with the American Folklife Center. These affiliations would not guarantee success, but they would offer visibility, legitimacy, and an audience. Most early-stage institutions never get that chance. Making their work visible from the start would raise expectations and the stakes. This kind of support would fill a gap in the NEA's current structure. Most of its funding supports specific projects—performances, exhibitions, research, or short-term community engagements—not the formation of institutions. Rather than steering artistic content or reinforcing messaging, the NEA would identify promising founders, coordinate institutional partners, and provide structural tools for early success. The goal would equip serious efforts to begin well—and let the venture do the work of growing well. Such a program would raise familiar questions. What happens if a group draws criticism? What if leadership changes shift priorities? Those are valid questions, but those risks are already part of every public arts program. What matters is whether judgment is applied with seriousness and tied to some shared understanding of the public good. This kind of work has a foundation. The English philosopher and critic Roger Scruton wrote that beauty is a value to be pursued for its own sake. It draws us out of ourselves and teaches us to care for what we inherit and what we make. Beauty invites memory, responsibility, and the desire to preserve. Public arts funding should support work shaped with that kind of intention—not because it looks a certain way, but because it reaches toward permanence. This vision is not theoretical. By the end of the decade, new institutions could be thriving across the country. A sacred music ensemble in Ohio might perform monthly in historic churches. A regional press could republish forgotten authors and release new fiction set in or inspired by local towns. A theater company might stage both contemporary and classic works for local audiences and schools. These groups would be independent and public-serving. We know this is possible. In Los Angeles, choreographer Lincoln Jones built American Contemporary Ballet from the ground up. Without public funding or institutional backing, he created a company defined by musical integrity, formal precision, and belief in the continuing relevance of classical ballet. Today, it performs both original and canonical works to full houses. His success is not common, but it is instructive. A cultural accelerator would not replace such work. It would give more artists the tools to follow through on what they are already building. The point of such a proposal is to build institutions that carry meaning and serve the public. It is to restore the idea that art is not just for the moment, but for memory. And it is to remind us that culture is not something we inherit intact or outsource. It is something we build—deliberately, carefully—with the courage to create what deserves to endure.
