The February 19 opening of “Prisoners of Love,” a sound and video installation exhibition at Brown’s David Winton Bell Gallery by Palestinian artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, was widely understood to be a swan song.
The show, supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, is the last at the university gallery organized by Kate Kraczon, the Bell’s director of exhibitions and chief curator, and Thea Quiray Tagle, associate curator. “Prisoners of Love” marks the end of an era for the space and its respected program. Little has been communicated about the university’s plans for the next phase for the institution, or even of the layoffs themselves beyond being reported on January 2 by ARTnews. As of this writing, the university has not publicly announced Kraczon’s and Quiray Tagle’s terminations.
Though widely discussed among the New England arts community, faculty and student response to Kraczon and Quiray Tagle’s December 2025 termination (notice of which was delivered in person by Brown Arts Institute (BAI) Director Sydney Skybetter and a Brown University HR representative) has been largely nonexistent—until yesterday.
Earlier this week, Brown faculty sent a letter (signed by ninety-two faculty members) to President Christina Paxson, Provost Francis J. Doyle III, Dean of the Faculty Leah VanWey, and the Faculty Executive Committee. Among the points in the collectively authored, multi-page document are requests for clarification regarding the curators terminations; the reinstatement of shared faculty oversight and governance over Brown Arts Institute (BAI); the terminations to be reopened for deliberation and input; an audit be conducted over the endowments supporting the Bell; and that curatorial leadership be moved outside of BAI and be reclassified as a senior lecturer or professor of the practice role.
The letter, which was reviewed by Boston Art Review, emphasizes that, should the terminations proceed, “Brown will become the only top R1 institution, and only Ivy League university, without a professional curatorial team overseeing its campus art gallery. Should the gallery close because of mismanagement, Brown would become the only Ivy League institution without a professionally curated, public-facing art gallery or fine art museum.” It continues: “The Bell Gallery is regularly used by many programs and departments across the campus, and it serves as a hub for cultural and artistic life in Providence and New England. These terminations will have a domino effect that will impact both who chooses to study and work at Brown and our public reputation as a university.”
Opened in 1971, the Bell Gallery has been a fixture of visual arts education and programming at Brown for students and faculty, providing professionally curated exhibitions with internationally recognized artists. The state of Rhode Island does not have a non-university–affiliated museum dedicated to international contemporary art. The lack of alternative offerings means the Bell Gallery’s programming serves an important public good for Ocean State residents beyond the university in which it’s housed. The impact of Kraczon’s and Quiray Tagle’s layoffs therefore holds the potential to represent a major shift for the gallery and leaves a gap in the Providence and Greater New England contemporary art ecosystem.
The letter highlights that elimination of professional curation at the Bell creates an existential risk for the gallery: “The Brown Arts Institute’s decision to terminate its professional curators leaves the Bell Gallery without leaders with field-specific expertise, rendering it vulnerable to a loss of credibility and causing serious damage to its longstanding reputation for curatorial excellence. It also raises the very real risk of gallery closure.”
Brown has cited financial struggles as the reason behind the cuts. The ARTnews article reported that the school announced a $30 million deficit for 2026, is selling off real estate, and has taken out $800 million in loans in the past year. In an email request for comment, BAI Director Sydney Skybetter said, “The Institute is undergoing some organizational changes this year as part of broader financial measures affecting Brown’s budget. Like many units across the university, we’ve been asked to reallocate resources in response to federal funding impacts. You may have seen that Brown eliminated fifty-five vacant budgeted positions and implemented layoffs affecting forty-eight positions campus-wide this fall, spanning a range of departments. BAI is part of that larger institutional effort.”
The faculty letter contests the framing that financial crisis is the rationale behind the dismissal of the curatorial staff. It notes that the full-time curatorial staff and part-time exhibition staff salaries have “historically” been supported by the “Goldberger and List endowments” and highlights Kraczon and Quiray Tagle’s fundraising efforts, which resulted in over $2 million from external grants and philanthropy for program operations. It also cites their record of establishing collaborations with prestigious museums including the “Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington), MACBA (Barcelona), Melly Foundation (Rotterdam), Nottingham Contemporary, Performa (New York), and Le Magasin (Grenoble, France).” The letter emphasizes that dismissal of staff curators puts these relationships and future fundraising efforts at risk because “Philanthropists and foundations support institutions that demonstrate long-term commitment and responsible stewardship. Eliminating curatorial positions sends a troubling signal about Brown’s priorities.”
The question is, if the Bell’s curators are so respected for building a program with a reputation for punching above its weight, has fundraised for itself, and critically serves the university’s academic mission, why are they being eliminated and who made the decision to do it? The letter makes clear the faculty still does not know.
In 2021, Brown established BAI and folded the Bell Gallery under its administrative purview. BAI is described as a “university-wide research enterprise and catalyst for the arts at Brown” on the program’s website. It includes The Lindemann Performing Arts Center, Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, and the Perelman Arts District. The Visual Art and Art History departments are not part of BAI, but faculty and students do regularly engage with the Bell as part of their curricula and course work.
“I can share that my department was not involved in making this decision. And, unfortunately, the decision will have a significant effect on our ability to fulfill our mission,” said history of art and architecture department chair Itohan Osayimwese via email.
“I don’t think any of the faculty across departments were aware that these changes were being made. We weren’t part of the decision-making around this. So if anyone speaks on it, it would likely be their own opinion on the matter. I think the consensus is that people are not happy about it,” wrote an anonymous faculty member in an email.
The letter alleges that by not informing faculty that BAI was considering dismissal of the curatorial staff, the decision to remove them “violates the faculty governance structure approved by the APC [Academic Priorities Committee] and adopted by a vote of the entire University faculty upon the establishment of the Brown Arts Institute on April 30, 2021. This suggests that the governance structures and oversight procedures of the BAI—as formally ratified by both the APC and a full faculty vote—have not been properly followed by the Institute’s current leadership and/or the senior administrators to whom they report.”
The lack of transparency and contradictory communication around the decision to terminate the curators is triggering speculation, angering the New England arts community, and creating a chilling effect on those willing to speak out. Faculty contacted for comment for this article cited fear of reprisal as their reason for unwillingness to speak on the record.
Addressing rumors that the Bell “is closing,” Skybetter said in an email, “The Bell remains very much open and active as Brown’s contemporary art space and a core program of the Brown Arts Institute. We will absolutely continue presenting exhibitions; Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s “Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom” opens February 19 and runs through May 31. The Bell’s permanent collection of more than 7,000 works and Public Art collection continues to be accessible to students, faculty, and the public, and programming will carry forward into the spring and beyond.”
Asked to comment about the closing of the Bell, Brown University professor of literary arts Thalia Field said over the phone, “I don’t know that it’s blinking out of existence; I think it’s changing what its purpose is and that may have the same effect. I don’t think you’re going to get someone who’s going to say it’s closing, because I don’t think they’re actually closing it. But the loss is still of a professionally run, professionally curated gallery.”
Though the curatorial team is being eliminated, Skybetter further shared that “professional curating will continue at the Bell. We’re in active conversations about how to structure that work going forward, and those conversations involve arts faculty, university leadership, and BAI.” Without an announced plan, it is unclear how the “professional curation” Skybetter refers to will occur.
In the context of the the closure of the University of New Hampshire’s Museum of Art, the recent layoffs at the MFA, Boston, and January’s announcement of the shuttering of the California College of the Arts at the end of next school year, Kraczon and Quiray Tagle’s dismissal taps into a broader concern about the future for the arts in academia in the US.
“There are fewer and fewer practitioners of the arts being hired. There’s fewer and fewer opportunities for students to work with professional artists. Programs are closing, we’re losing grad students, which means the undergrads get less classes available to them. I would say the arts are in a critical state. And you have to blame the [university] administration. Choices are being made,” said Field.
The question that remains: Who is making these choices?
