BlogBacks: Readers’ Prose on the Rose

Brandeis University's proposal to close or repurpose its Rose Art Museum, selling works from the collection, has occasioned much comment from artworld luminaries who are Brandeis alums, as well as from many CultureGrrl readers. Here are some notes that I've received:

Donald Knaub, former director of both the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University, writes:

I hope that universities and their museums would take the opportunity this financial crisis presents to explore the useful place an art museum could have in an academic setting. Unfortunately, except for a few teaching art collections, most academic administrators see their museums as elegant parlors in which to entertain guests.

I actually had a university president describe my position as a butler in charge of the university's living room. In tough times why not sell off the decorations, which is what too many university presidents consider their collections.

David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum and of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (and recent guest on the Colbert Report), writes:

The tragic conditions and situations that may lead museums (like the Rose) to consider selling their collections, will only increase as we get further into this new economy. But it is analogous to situations in which families decide (or are forced) to put children into foster care because they can no longer afford to properly care for them. That is a terrible thing, and we all understand the psycho-social implications upon families torn apart this way.

But families do not sell the children they can no longer afford to care for---at least, not in this country and not in this century. The somewhat strained analogy here is that when museums can no longer care for their collections, they too should be put into foster care, not sold.

If the Rose has to be shut down (a short-sighted decision, but one that can be made by the university), then its collection should be transferred to another institution---the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard, even the Institute of Contemporary Art---until that time when Brandeis feels capable of supporting it with appropriate professional care. Our sadness would be tempered by the knowledge that the "children" would be loved and well cared for.

Karen Wesler, an artist and Brandeis alum, writes:

I am reading about the closing of the Rose and weeping. The Rose was a hugely important part of my education. I remember being able to touch the gorgeous Motherwell etchings which accompanied the poems of Rafael Alberti. I learned etching at Brandeis, and those prints blew my mind, as did the unbelievable Frankenthaler show.

I feel horrible about the economic situation, of course, but this kind of move tears my heart out. What does it say about the state of education? That the arts are negligible. I'm distressed that such a bastion of liberal education as Brandeis would choose to make such a terrible move. I hope they don't get approval to sell the works.

Tama Hochbaum, an artist and Brandeis alum, writes:

I was at Brandeis when Carl Belz was the director [of the Rose Art Museum]. I lived in Boston for many years after and became friends with both Carl and Susan Stoops, his brilliant assistant. My husband, Allen Anderson, taught in the Music Department at Brandeis as well and we met in the Early Music Group in 1974.

All this to say: I have deep connections there and am appalled that this is happening. To "save" the university, the first place they cut is the arts. It goes against everything that I was taught there. It's a crying shame.