Reform the Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts

ALT A comic meme of the game Among Us. The first panel is a red crew member saying “U looking real sus” to a black imposter crew member labeled “The VMFA” peeking out of a vent. In the next comic panel, the imposter says “The state is taking control of the imagery on Monument Ave.”

ALT A screenshot of the December Executive Committee Meeting Transcript. The following quotes are highlighted in blue: Alex Nyerges: “Obviously having the Governor ask us to lead the effort to re-envision Monument Ave is and extraordinary achievement.” “My other comment would be that I would love for everybody to provide ideas about specific people or the kinds of organizations that we want to have involved.” “We are going to include people that cover both sides of the street, literally and figuratively.” “Leaning heavily on our Contemporary curatorial folks, particularly Valerie Cassel Oliver.”

ALT “It has to be a product of the collective minds of so many. [sic]people in Richmond, across Virginia, across the country and quite frankly, I have said a couple of times, across the world.” “This is an opportunity that I think if there is anything that is an explaination point after the words, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, this is it.” “I think it is important that we continue to reiterate to all of our stakeholders that the Monument Avenue re-envisioning is totally part of our strategic plan. It checks a lot of the boxes that we set out to do, but somehow weave it into the plan.” “We are going to hire a Project Director and then another senior person. The Project Director with report to Michael...That is the approach we are going to take.” ‘We are just fortunate to be in a position to be able to take the lead on this monumental, pardon the pun, endeavor to re-visualize and re-envision the history and the artistry on Monument Avenue. It is kudos to everybody in the room and beyond.”

ALT The only two caveats I will tell you is that when the Governor’s office called and said we would like you to do this, I said, ‘Well, we will do this, but number one is that we get to dictate structure and organization. That we do not want to have is a community-based group of well-meaning citizens that are not going to be able to create the grand vision that

ALT A meme image of a little girl looking unimpressed labeled “Staff” while a woman is smugly smiling next to her labeled “VMFA Leadership”

ALT A screenshot of the June 25 VMFA Townhall transcript with the following passages highlighted in green: “Nicole: Umm, will senior [positions?] be taking a pay reduction to, support, uh, the prevention of further furloughs or layoffs? Alex: Well we already have, uhh everybody on the senior management leadership team, the eight of us, uhh you see on the screen, uh actually did it, earlier. We did it before there was, uh coronavirus, because the budget for fiscal 20 wasn't balancing. Uh and so we decided, as everybody remembers, uhh there was a 5-percent pay increase. We decided to turn our 5-percent pay increases back, uhh for all of us, uh individually and collectively, so that we could keep other employees, uh on the payroll, and keep the museum running in the right direction. Now, we don't know what's gonna happen when the General Assembly comes back in, in August, uhh so there is the possibility of further pay cuts, but we'll start at the top.

ALT A screen shot of the December 2020 Executive Committee Transcript with the following passage highlighted in red and underlined: “Monroe Harris, Jr: Okay so what was discussed in closed session was that we should give the maximum budgeted amount to Alex Nyerges for his bonus. May I have a second please?”

ALT A meme from the movie Parasite depicting a wealthy woman in the backseat of a car on the phone, labeled as the VMFA while the man driving her scowls in resentment labeled as All of Us.

ALT A screenshot of the Executive Committee Transcript - Nov 10, 2020 with the following text highlighted: We are not issuing any press releases about the $125 million. Quite frankly, we are not going to be issuing many press releases. We are going to do that strategically for individual gifts, and we are working on that plan now. We do not want to draw too much attention to the fact that we have a $365 million dollar Campaign underway. That is not something we want to publicize. Quite frankly, my rule of thumb is 80-90% of the money in before we go public with this Campaign...You know, there are a lot of people suffering, a lot of people out of jobs, a lot of people sick, and a lot of people dying. And although i would like to say that we are successful, particularly given the circumstances, it is not something we are going to crow about. I am hoping that a year and a half or two years from now, as the world is a much better place than it has been in 2020 we will be on top of the world.”