Word: museums
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That Christie's appraisal of the Rose collection was ordered up by the museum's now thoroughly traumatized director, Michael Rush, who did not learn that Brandeis had plans for his museum until the day the school made its initial announcement. He wanted to arrive at a dollar figure for the collection, he says, for insurance purposes, but also to raise the profile of the museum in the eyes of campus administrators. "I thought that the more information they had about how great this place was, the better it would be," he says. "That may have backfired...
...selling the entire collection immediately," he wrote, "which is not true. The University may have the option, subject to applicable legal requirements and procedures, to sell some artworks if necessary, but I assure you that other options will also be considered." In his letter Reinharz also said that "the museum will remain open," but as an arts study center, "more fully integrated into the university's central educational mission...
...just why is Brandeis so intent on repurposing the Rose, in whatever way? For a university with a considerable art-history program, which Brandeis is, to remake its museum into something other than a museum is like an agriculture school selling off its livestock. It means eliminating an important teaching resource...
...donors - assuming that Brandeis sees a place in its future at all for displaying art. Marlene Persky, who chairs the collections committee of the Rose, had been planning to give the school a work by Vik Muniz, an artist who is represented in the collections of most major American museums. Not anymore. "The things in my collection are objects I've loved and lived with," she says. "If I'm donating them to a museum, I expect that to be a place that I trust, where the objects will be treated with the care I give them...
...Brandeis remains intent on selling part of its collection, there may be a certain logic in getting out of the museum business first. The school may be hoping that if the Rose is transformed into something other than a museum - or just into something that doesn't call itself a museum -?it can circumvent the code of ethics that governs the sale of art by museums. No museum means no rules to observe, especially the most inconvenient one - that museums should not sell art from their permanent collections for any purpose other than to raise funds to purchase more...