John Hechinger of the Wall Street Journal reports today of Brandeis University’s decision to close its Rose Art Museum and sell more than 6,000 artworks from its collection. The University blames its decision on undisclosed endowment losses. A little reading between the lines tells me that some Madoff-related investments has something to do with the immediate crisis. This sucks.
My first job interview after graduation was at the Rose Art Museum. It has one of the top modern art collections and progressive programming in the country - mainly due to the generousity of its insightful and sophisticated donors. Any large museum in the world would covet its Warhols, de Koonings, Johnses, Lichtensteins and Rosenquists. It also has been busy acquiring today’s top artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Nan Goldin, Alfredo Jaar, Donald Judd, Annette Lemieux, Robert Mangold, Judy Pfaff, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith. [sidenote: I didn’t get the job. Grrrr.]
Apparently, Brandies’ financial struggles have caused its leaders to regroup and narrow the University’s focus to a strictly educational mission. How does axing a university’s art museum help its mission to fully educate its student body? Here is the Rose Art Museum’s mission statement:
Founded in 1961, The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University is an educational and cultural institution dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting the finest of modern and contemporary art. The programs of the Rose adhere to the overall mission of the University, embracing its values of academic excellence, social justice, and freedom of expression.
An active participant in the academic, cultural, and social life of Brandeis, the Rose seeks to stimulate public awareness and disseminate knowledge of modern and contemporary art to enrich educational, cultural, and artistic communities regionally, nationally, and internationally. The Rose affirms the principle that knowledge of the past informs an understanding of the present and provides the critical foundation for shaping the future. It promotes learning and understanding of the evolving meanings, ideas, and forms of visual art relevant to contemporary society.
To me, this sounds right in line with providing one of the cornerstones of education to any student enrolled there. I’ll chalk it up to just another example of the puny level of importance our educational "system" places on the arts. I predict plenty of lawsuits stemming from this shortsighted decision.
Boy, did you get that wrong.
If Brandeis placed little value on the arts, it would be closing its budget gap by eliminating its studio arts major and certificate programs, and perhaps theater arts and music while it was at it. Instead, it will be converting the entire former Rose facility into teaching, exhibition, and studio space for the arts.
If you're looking for someone to blame for this fiasco, try the zealots of the arts community. As the director explains, Brandeis would have been content selling off the comparative handful of million dollar paintings, and using the $350m+ generated by the sales to secure the future of the museum (and the other 7,000 works of art it holds), plug the operating deficit, and bolster the endowment. Students would have lost access to a handful of major works they almost never saw - they were mostly in storage or on loan - but retained the truly excellent teaching collection that served the heart of the educational purpose. But Brandeis had experience with the absolutist views of the art establishment, and figured that if it was going to take the sort of abuse that would leave the museum ostracized and weakened, it might as well just shut it down entirely.
Time to reconsider deaccessioning, no?
Posted by: Observer | January 28, 2009 at 12:57 PM
You seem to have your finger closer to the pulse of this subject. I appreciate your observations and opinions. Unfortunately, I disagree.
The Museum has an obligation to its donors and members. As with virtually all university museums, its role extends far beyond the campus gates. Seeing the art that has been graciously donated to the institution as a financial asset is shortsighted.
To stem its financial troubles, I wonder if Brandeis (despite having one of the very largest endowments for a private institution) considered selling off its biology and physics lab equipment or any of its computers and books. Probably not. Instead they turned to - in their monds - the most disposable. Art.
Like I said, I foresee law suits. At the least, Brandeis will offend a number of its donors. Neither are acceptable results when trying to plug holes in its leaky investments. I'd rather see them look further into the future and take the Museum off the chopping block.
Posted by: Rob Jones | January 28, 2009 at 02:01 PM
Don't see why everybody has missed the positive aspects of the closing of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis ....
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/brandeis-liberal-arts-without-the-art/
Seriously, this must have been done to provoke outrage -- and new funding.
Posted by: Mike Licht | January 28, 2009 at 03:13 PM
I honestly can't see any truly positive aspects of the deaccessioning. But, Mike, I appreciate your "refreshing" point of view.
Posted by: Rob Jones | January 28, 2009 at 03:59 PM