On April 13, the Guggenheim Board of Trustees informed the Gulf Labor Coalition (GLC) that it will no longer negotiate with the group regarding the living and working conditions of the workers who are and will be building its museum in Abu Dhabi. Today, Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, sent an email [at the bottom of this post] to numerous artists, critics, curators, and museum directors around the world describing GLC as a group that “continues to shift its demands” and uses “deliberate falsehoods.”

The failure of the talks comes after a roughly yearlong process that began after the 2015 May Day occupation of the New York Guggenheim and the May 8 occupation of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice during the Venice Biennale.

Following their agreement, GLC had meetings with the Guggenheim on June 3 and September 15, 2015, and two Guggenheim Board members (William Mack and Jennifer Stockman) were in attendance. They had another meeting by phone on December 14, 2015.

GLC says they requested a “summit” level meeting between themselves, the Guggenheim Foundation, and several key NGOs. “We were told the soonest such a meeting could happen was six months later in February 2016. As a gesture of good faith, GLC agreed to a moratorium on public protests while negotiations were ongoing,” the GLC wrote in a statement released today.

The NGO coalition assembled by GLC in preparation for the February meeting included Fiona Murie (Building and Woodworkers’ International), Jill Wells (Engineers Against Poverty), Sarah Leah Whitson (Human Rights Watch), Jeffrey Vogt (International Trade Union Confederation), and Shilkha Silliman Bhattacharjee (Society for Labor and Development). After a “productive three-hour meeting” in February, according to GLC, the group told the Guggenheim that they wanted to meet with the museum biweekly to develop the “contractual language needed to build a museum in Abu Dhabi.” They asked that the Guggenheim respond to their request by April 1. The Guggenheim’s decision arrived last week.

In his email today, Armstrong lays the blame on GLC, writing: “Gulf Labor continues to shift its demands on the Guggenheim beyond the reach of our influence as an arts institution while continuing to spread mistruths about the project and our role in it.” He outlines progress in the field of labor rights by Abu Dhabi over the last few years, to which he suggests the Guggenheim has contributed.

“GLC regrets the Guggenheim’s decision to walk out of our good-faith negotiations, and we urge the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, William L. Mack, President of the Board of Trustees, Jennifer Blei Stockman to reconsider this decision,” GLC member Walid Raad told Hyperallergic. “Especially at this very moment, and after our February 19, 2016, meeting with the Guggenheim, when we presented the museum with a clear path forward, one that was also endorsed by Human Rights Watch, Building and Wood Worker’s International, Engineers Against Poverty, Society for Labor and Development, and the International Trade Union Confederation. It seems that our recent meeting confronted the Guggenheim with a moment of true decision, to work with a group of committed organizations to hammer out tangible solutions or continue with vague generalities about ‘doing our best,’ and they have opted for the latter.”

Andrew Ross, another member of GLC, echoed Raad’s thoughts. “Walking away from a six-year dialogue with artists and writers is in very bad faith. But the timing is especially ill-considered,” Ross told Hyperallergic. “This is the moment when the general contract is being drawn up and when the opportunity to make a breakthrough in labor relations in Abu Dhabi should be seized, not spurned. The museum leadership continues to make unwise decisions.”

Another member of GLC, Paula Chakravartty, told Hyperallergic that she found the Guggenheim’s tone odd. “It is unfortunate that the statement that has been issued by the Guggenheim tries to personalize (targeting well-known artists who are active in this campaign) the GLC intervention,” she said. “The most recent unilateral decision to terminate dialogue in the wake of a productive opening for real change seems cynical at best. The mischaracterization of GLC’s role in this process serves only to deflect attention from the largely invisible migrant workforce who continue to struggle for decent wages and dignity in the UAE, experiences and realities that GLC will continue to raise and amplify in our ongoing campaign.”

The signatories of the GLC statement are Amin Husain, Andrew Ross, Ashok Sukumaran, Ayreen Anastas, Doris Bittar, Doug Ashford, Eric Baudelaire, Gregory Sholette, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Haig Aivazian, Hans Haacke, Joseph Rauch, Kristina Bogos, Mariam Ghani, Michael Rakowitz, Naeem Mohaiemen, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Nitasha Dhillon, Noah Fischer, Paula Chakravartty, Rene Gabri, Sam Durant, Shaina Anand, Tania Bruguera, and Walid Raad.

Hyperallergic has reached out to Armstrong for comment.

* * *

The following is the entire email by Richard Armstrong that was circulated to various recipients today: