Having been accused of having conflicts of interest while director of the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam, Beatrix Ruf is in the clear. The German curator resigned in October 2017 after a series of damaging media reports. A 120-page investigation, commissioned by the city council, however dismissed claims that the business of Currentmatters, Ruf’s art-advisory consultancy, posed a conflict of interest with her museum work, after the institution accepted works on loan from owners she advised. The authors of the report state they could find no reason to doubt Ruf’s “integrity” though they do say she should have followed the “spirit” of governance regulations, not just the letter.
In the wake of the report’s publication, three members of the Stedelijk’s supervisory board, Jos van Rooijen, Madeleine de Cock Buning and Rita Kersting, announced they would step down. ‘Contrary to stories in the press, the independent investigators concluded I always acted with integrity; all side activities were approved; and I never ran an art consulting business on the side,’ Ruf said in a statement ‘But above all, I was touched most by their conclusion that I always put my heart and soul into the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Because I did.’
15 June 2018
