Maybe My Favorite Rose Art Museum Article So Far...

I don't know how I didn't stumble upon this story, and obviously this blog poster doesn't know Brandeis all that well, but here it goes:

The huffing and puffing over the Rose Art Museum brouhaha continues - but some possible clarity (and a little accounting expertise) has been brought to the matter by Felix Salmon over at Portfolio.com. Long story short: he doesn't think Brandeis's situation is catastrophic, and the Board is closing the Rose merely to avoid de-accessioning rules (which apparently only apply to open museums; go figure). Once they have sold enough art to cover their operating expenses, Brandeis will be left with an arts center and a collection almost as big as it had to begin with. It's a plausible theory; somehow I still find it hard to believe the Brandeis Board could have been stupid enough to stumble into this imbroglio over a $10 million gap in their operating budget. But it's possible!

I guess the author of the blog doesn't really know the Brandeis Board. But imagine if it is true. More from Salmon:

[Director of communications in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations at Brandeis David] Nathan told me that the reason is that selling art which is part of a museum is very difficult indeed. Clearly, Brandeis has come to the conclusion that by shutting down the museum, it can ignore all rules pertaining to deaccessioning, and worry only about the strings attached by donors to individual artworks.

Nathan also said something else which was extremely interesting to me: apparently all of the Rose Art Museum's artworks are considered to be assets of the university endowment, valued at $1 each. All the proceeds from the sale of any artwork, then, is automatically a desperately-needed capital gain for the endowment.

If the case is that they are going to sell off some pieces to skirt around some stupid rules and to make up the budget, I'm becoming more OK with the idea. News has come out that they don't need to sell all the art, so imagine if they sold off some pieces (that are probably being loaned out or just kept in storage anyways), made up the deficit and then were able to reopen the museum with almost as many pieces. That would be quite amazing.

 

Some other articles (H/T Sarah on most):

-More great articles from Salmon here, here, here and here

-More Boston Globe coverage (it must be slow-goings in Boston because this has gotten a LOT of play). I already posted the video from this in the post below.

-The Jewish Journal (selling off or selling out?)

-And Flavorwire (more on another museum who may be going the route of the Rose)