YBCA Announces a New CEO After a Year of Protests and Staff Departures

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the multidisciplinary arts space in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens complex, today announced the appointment of Maricelle “Mari” Robles as its next CEO. Robles comes to YBCA from Headlands Center for the Arts, where she served as executive director for the past four years.

“YBCA has this amazing legacy of presenting experimental, cutting-edge, community-focused Bay Area artists and then having them in a larger global conversation about the arts and social justice,” Robles told KQED. “I’ll be looking to continue and build on that legacy.”

Robles arrives at the 31-year-old institution at a fraught time in its history.

Earlier this year, artists in its Bay Area Now 9 exhibition altered their own artwork in a pro-Palestinian action on Feb. 15. YBCA, led at the time by interim CEO Sara Fenske Bahat, shut its doors following the event, canceling scheduled programs, and stayed closed for an entire month.

While the altered artwork remained on view after reopening, the museum installed wall labels to explain that messages like “free Palestine” and “ceasefire now” represented the artists’ views, not YBCA’s. Fenske Bahat resigned on March 3, citing “vitriolic and antisemitic backlash” directed at her after the protest. (She has since been hired to lead Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie’s transition team.)

At least nine staff members left YBCA in the aftermath of the closure, and open letters from staff and artists accused the museum of censorship. A new interim CEO, Jim Rettew, was hired to lead the organization after Fenske Bahat’s departure.

The events received extensive coverage in both local and national news outlets as pro-Palestinian activists and artists called on institutions to address the war in Gaza.

“There was a lot of growth for the organization, going through these very public steps and missteps,” Robles said of YBCA. “What I feel most committed to is making sure that we live our mission and making sure we create a space where artists, staff and board are free to feel safe and comfortable in their work environment.”

At Headlands, Robles oversaw the creation of two new fellowship programs and brought in new funding sources, but her tenure was also marked by layoffs and fundraising shortfalls. Prior to that role, she held positions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and DreamYard Art Center in the Bronx.

YBCA, which shows an operating budget of around $18 million in recent tax filings, is a much larger organization than Headlands, which had an operating budget of $5.2 million in 2023.

Robles said some of her initial hiring priorities include a chief of programs, and rebuilding the institution’s artistic team, which will include positions in visual arts, performance and film. (YBCA hasn’t had a full-time film curator since 2018.)

“The city has a rich history of film programming and YBCA in particular was part of that,” Robles said. She credits her time at Headlands with introducing her to the Bay Area film community.

She’ll officially start on Jan. 6, 2025, in time to help shape YBCA’s next strategic plan, which will guide the institution for the next five years. At the top of her list are partnerships with other local organizations like SOMA Pilipinas, the Filipino Cultural Heritage District, which regularly hosts events at YBCA, including parts of the upcoming Parol Lantern Festival on Dec. 15.

YBCA will be under even more pressure to bring a sense of vibrancy to the immediate neighborhood in the coming year. The Contemporary Jewish Museum will close to the public on Dec. 15 in an attempt to reconfigure its expenses. The Museum of the African Diaspora will close March through September 2025 to upgrade its galleries. The Mexican Museum still has yet to move into its planned home across the street from YBCA.

Despite these challenges, Robles is ready to take the helm at a museum she says occupies “a unique place” in the local and global arts ecosystem.

“I believe in institutions,” she said, “And YBCA was founded in the early ’90s really with this thought of ‘What does a downtown revitalization effort focused on arts look like?’ And so that remains. I’m excited about picking up the baton.”