Renovated Rose Reopens at Brandeis: Loses Its Pool, Gains Brighter Future (plus update on Folk Art Museum’s progress)

Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum will reopen on Oct. 27 with three permanent collection shows celebrating its 50th anniversary. Emerging from a rocky period under the university's previous president, Jehuda Reinharz, when its future seemed in grave doubt, it now has the enthusiastic support of Brandeis' new president, Frederick Lawrence, and has undergone an extensive physical renovation,

In a conversation with me today, Lawrence said he's "very hopeful" that events related to the reopening "will bring back a lot of people who have not been to the Rose for some time and will bring us new people who have never been to the Rose," helping the museum to enlist new supporters. The plan to lease works from the collection through Sotheby's still exists, but no works have yet been rented out and there's "nothing new to report."

Lawrence added:

We have begun a strategic planning exercise, university-wide, to really begin to think about where we see ourselves going in the future and where we're gong to put emphasis....I see the whole area of the creative arts as part of our curriculum generally---and the Rose as a piece of that---as very much part of that discussion.

The capital project, undertaken with a gift from Sandra and Gerald S. Fineberg, replaced the front curtain wall "with new, more energy-efficient glass," installed a new climate control system, and (alas) eliminated the museum's signature water feature, which worked so well in last year's "Waterways" exhibition:


Installation shot of "Waterways"
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

Here's that gallery, without the water:


Photo by Mike Lovett, Brandeis University

The moisture from the pool had always hindered proper humidity control for the art, noted Roy Dawes, the Rose's director of museum operations.

What the Rose still conspicuously lacks is a new permanent director to replace Michael Rush, who left his post in July 2009, after expressing strong public opposition to Reinharz's misguided mission to monetize the collection as an expedient for alleviating the university's recession-caused financial crisis. Dawes is serving, for now, as the Rose's de facto director. An update on the progress of the director's search is here. Lawrence today said he was "optimistic about the quality of the candidates" who have shown interest.

Invited to the Rose's evening VIP opening on Oct. 26 are artists, artworld luminaries and members of the campus community. In addition to previewing the new exhibitions, they will hear a conversation between artist James Rosenquist (whose "Two 1959 People" will be displayed) and Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg, a Brandeis alumnus.

Rosenquist, as CultureGrrl readers may remember, had agreed to (and then precipitously pulled out of) a fall 2010 one-man show that had been hastily scheduled at the then embattled museum, after three other artists---Bill Viola, Eric Fischl and April Gornik---had withdrawn from a planned exhibition, in protest against the university's unwillingness at that time to commit to preserving the permanent collection.

Like the American Folk Art Museum, the Rose's status has morphed from moribund to viable, making it ripe for new financial support to bolster that progress. On its homepage, the Rose has now posted a link to a donation page.

Speaking of support for previously endangered museums, the American Folk Art Museum last week posted an upbeat letter by its new president, Monty Blanchard, thanking friends for getting his institution on more stable footing. Among those he acknowledged was Joyce Cowin, who, Blanchard said, had "joyously committed to Lincoln Square and the Museum for many years, and whose recent substantial financial pledge in support of the revitalized Museum is the rock on which our future is built."


Entrance to the former flagship facility of the American Folk Art Museum on W. 53rd Street, next to the Museum of Modern Art (which purchased the building)
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

Also among others Blanchard thanked was the NY Times, "whose critics' [read: Roberta Smith's] appreciation of and passion for our art and our institution is second to none and is always valuable to us." (Roberta's got the clout, but CultureGrrl 's Save the American Folk Art Museum! was predecessor of, if not inspiration for, Roberta's rallying cry for the museum's rescue.)

Surprisingly, those whom Blanchard thanked in his letter included the Museum of Modern Art (for being "a great neighbor [my link, not theirs] on 53rd Street") but not the Brooklyn Museum, New-York Historical Society or Museum of Arts and Design, all of which had expressed interest in collaborating with AFAM on future projects. Nor did he acknowledge the Metropolitan Museum for its planned display about 15 works from AFAM's collection as part of the opening of its new American Wing in January. All of these interventions would help give a higher profile to AFAM as an important star in New York's cultural constellation.

As of now, no future exhibitions are listed on on AFAM's website. The museum is currently showing quilts from its collection at its Lincoln Square facility.

In his letter, Blanchard said this about AFAM's future:

We must continue to be frugal with our financial resources, but for the first time in many years, we can think of undertaking new initiatives and developing new approaches to our mission of collecting, presenting, studying and disseminating our traditional folk and contemporary outsider art....All of us...feel a great sense of responsibility and opportunity to remain in the forefront of America's and the City's artistic dialogue.

Donations, anyone?