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The iconic Mudam art museum in KirchbergPhoto:Denise Hastert/Creative Commons 

The Woxx newspaper has obtained a letter from staff at Mudam addressed to management at the modern art museum that says they are exhausted by their increasing workload and that the quality of their work is not being acknowledged. Being under “greater pressure is very demotivating for all of us” the letter continues.

Woxx says the letter also includes complaints that salaries at Mudam are not as high as at the other contemporary art museum in the city, the Casino. Staff were also concerned at recruitment strategy, which included an advertisement for a head of artistic programmes and content on a specialist recruitment website, and crucially not on the Mudam website. The job profile corresponds to the work currently being done by head curator Clément Minighetti, who was allegedly threatened with the sack last year.

The letter says the atmosphere at Mudam among staff is terrible and that many fear for their jobs and have begun to look elsewhere for employment.

Management at the museum responded by saying they were disappointed that an internal letter was leaked to the press. They say that Mudam is currently undergoing an important transitional phase as it builds on record number of visitors in 2018. “We are aware that such situations are not always easy, neither for the staff nor for the management of Mudam, which takes working conditions within its institution very seriously.”

Mudam has suffered from a series of bad press since the so-called Lunghi affair when former director Enrico Lunghi was accused of physically injuring an RTL journalist during an interview. Then there was the controversy over the decision by new director Suzanne Cotter to remove the iconic “Chapelle” installation by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye.