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Dispossession by attrition is a permanent condition
FUCKING BERNIE MADOFF.
I suppose I should be glad an art museum is more readily sacrificed than a classics department? (I suspect it's easier to sell off paintings than professors.) Presidential reassurance notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe it's merely a sign of the times: "The global financial crisis and deepening national economic recession require Brandeis to formulate and execute decisive plans that will position the university to emerge stronger for the benefit of our students . . ." Oh, damn it, damn it. I should have gone to their surrealist exhibition in November. Art is meant to be cherished, not flung to the winds. Where do I protest? Maybe I can paint it on a wall.
I suppose I should be glad an art museum is more readily sacrificed than a classics department? (I suspect it's easier to sell off paintings than professors.) Presidential reassurance notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe it's merely a sign of the times: "The global financial crisis and deepening national economic recession require Brandeis to formulate and execute decisive plans that will position the university to emerge stronger for the benefit of our students . . ." Oh, damn it, damn it. I should have gone to their surrealist exhibition in November. Art is meant to be cherished, not flung to the winds. Where do I protest? Maybe I can paint it on a wall.
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Yes. It makes me very unsettled about what goes next. I know a school isn't the walls, the classrooms, etc., but how much can you chip away before too much is changed?
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The Chagalls were the first thing I thought of. Just their on-campus proximity made me happy.
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Much as it's better than axing classics, or some other department, as you said... I have to wonder if they looked at, oh, say, cutting administrators?
Perhaps that's just my cynicism coming through.
In any event, I'm sorry.
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There was a certain amount of mordancy in that sentence. No one should ax an art museum.
I have to wonder if they looked at, oh, say, cutting administrators?
No; I'm sure the university has fired all sorts of people I don't even know about yet. And that isn't any good either.
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True. I'm sorry for the ugly/disturbing image.
No; I'm sure the university has fired all sorts of people I don't even know about yet. And that isn't any good either.
You're right. I'm sorry, I was over-wrought. I just... I don't know, I hate it when schools do these things.
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According to the press release sent to staff, the closing will take place this summer, so there will still be time to visit the collection (and, at risk of saying the obvious, there's nothing that one patron, or a thousand, could have done in light of the financial hole in which the university finds itself).
Which doesn't make me any less heartbroken. After so many years at Emory, having access to a good museum on campus was one of the few similarities at Brandeis. Seeing Warhols at lunch is something rare and special.
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God. I'm sure of it. I received some kind of alumni mailing announcement tonight; I imagine what you describe was tactfully covered by "substantial decreases in administrative budgets." Are you currently at Brandeis? Your information may be better than mine.
(and, at risk of saying the obvious, there's nothing that one patron, or a thousand, could have done in light of the financial hole in which the university finds itself).
Oh, yeah: I know my three dollars wouldn't have made a dent. But I still mind.
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*sigh* Yeah, that sounds like a euphemism that would cover it.
Are you currently at Brandeis? Your information may be better than mine.
I am, but I'm not sure I've got a ton of other info. Our department lost a sizable group of people last week, and we've got a bunch of open positions that will likely go unfilled. There are rumors swirling about other moves in other departments, but I haven't heard anything concrete yet.
Oh, yeah: I know my three dollars wouldn't have made a dent. But I still mind.
Yeah, I get that.
(Edited to remove my department name.)
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Understood. I hope they come out all right anyway.
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I /think/ Williams is riding out the storm a little better (this is the one advantage to having so many finance people among the alumni)
I'm now wondering whether THEY'LL buy part of the collection.
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Dude, seriously, if there were an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world's finances, don't you think Yeshiva University would have gotten a lot less ripped off?
I'm now wondering whether THEY'LL buy part of the collection.
I'll come and visit the Chagalls in exile . . .
(I don't want them to be in exile. It isn't the possession on campus: it's that you don't break up a museum. I would not be Stephanie Meyer for all the sparkles in Washington, but I would not mind her money. How much does it suck that Madoff also kneecapped charities and philanthropists?)
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Also? Brandeis' endowment in January 2008 = $700 million. Williams' endowment in January 2008 = more than three times that.
It does seem weird, though, to sell off whole freaking MUSEUM to close a $10M hole in the annual operating budget.
The romantic part of me wants to see the other umpteen institutions of art in the greater Boston area band together and "buy" parts of the Brandeis collection but arrange to leave them in situ.
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It's kind of unprecedented. And of course the donors and foundations whom Brandeis could normally ask for help are people like Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro, who have lost more money than I will ever see in my lifetime.
It does seem weird, though, to sell off whole freaking MUSEUM to close a $10M hole in the annual operating budget.
Yes; I can't believe it's a $10 million hole. What worries me is the thought that the university's financial situation is much worse than anyone's saying, and—I know, brainwave—I'm not sure how you fix a problem if you don't mention to anyone that it exists.
The romantic part of me wants to see the other umpteen institutions of art in the greater Boston area band together and "buy" parts of the Brandeis collection but arrange to leave them in situ.
I could definitely live with that. I wonder how you contact the MFA and ask.
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Does this answer your question?
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I know it's a balancing act—auction off artwork or turn the professors out? But money is money; it's what you do with it that matters. Paintings and sketches are only themselves; they cannot really be converted into anything else. You have to prize them. You burn books only if it's fire or freezing to death.
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I feel like someone kicked me in the stomach.
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I do not want to be a professional athlete; I do not want to be J.K. Rowling. I do want a couple billion dollars to hand: I know where I'd send them right now.
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I feel bad for the museum as a building, too, distinct from its art and its people; apparently it was just renovated in 2001; all that effort, time, money and thought only to close a few years later.
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Yes! What kind of permanence is that?
I know this isn't the burning of the library at Alexandria, but it really bothers me.
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Of course this is a rotten dichotomy, but yes: in an urban area faculty can always take or send students out to see such jewels elsewhere. Then again, I'm hardly disinterested, I s'pose. This passage sounds familiar:
. . . such as reducing the size of the faculty by 10 percent, increasing undergraduate enrollment by 12 percent to boost tuition revenue, and overhauling the undergraduate curriculum by eliminating individual academic programs in favor of larger, interdisciplinary divisions.
At which point (and this is where my campus is headed too) I wonder who we think we're kidding. A recent message like that from my admin came followed by the solemn pronouncement that "we would never want to short-change the students." Humbuggery.
But we don't need to be gloomy. Convenient or not for the bean-counting mind, there's a need for higher ed. that can't be turned into a profit-making (or even money focussed) venture. (And thinking that I've just started work on my first online course, which *will* be about generating money . . .)
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Even so: it's one thing to send statues back to their country of origin, or return paintings to the families of those they were stolen from. It's another thing entirely to dissolve a museum—as
At which point (and this is where my campus is headed too) I wonder who we think we're kidding.
Where do you teach, by the way? I can't remember if I've asked.
Convenient or not for the bean-counting mind, there's a need for higher ed. that can't be turned into a profit-making (or even money focussed) venture.
God, I hope so!
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I know Max Ernst and Joan Miró aren't in a position to complain, but if I were a contemporary artist? I'd be pissed.
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wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
. . .
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking." ~ Constantine Cavafy, 1904
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It does seem like a drastic move... was that surgery really necessary? I don't know. I know my sister, who went to Tufts, told me that some $20 million of its endowment was lost thanks to Madoff, too.
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I don't know how much Brandeis has lost. I would very much like to. The Rose Art Museum took the front-page headline in today's Globe, and from it I learn only some of the numbers:
In an interview last night, he [Michael Rush, the Rose Art Museum director] estimated the collection's value could top $350 million . . . A university spokesman said that Brandeis's endowment, which topped $700 million at one point, is down dramatically, though he declined to say by how much. Closing the Rose is likely to be one among several cost-cutting moves meant to bridge a budget deficit that could be as high as $10 million.
$10 million deficit, so you sell $350 million worth of art? How much have they really lost? What is going on here?
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Maybe in the northeast, babe. Not where I went to school. (But then, popular legend had it my alma mater built its econ department--widely considered one of the best in the country--by finding people who'd been convicted of over x million in insider trading fraud.)
Art is meant to be cherished, not flung to the winds. Where do I protest? Maybe I can paint it on a wall.
I love the cognitive disjunction there, especially since it's actually a perfectly logical three sentences. But then, there are a whole bunch of mandala-makers who would likely disagree with you.
I'd have less of a problem with the idea if America still housed folks like the Arensbergs, who would simply let people come over to their house, wander around, and look at all the Braques and Duchamp hanging on their walls... in today's climate, though, I wonder how much of it will be seen again in my lifetime. sigh.
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(Somehow that registers as awesome while I still wish Madoff to be fined for everything he's got. I don't count the Shapiros as innocently fleeced victims, because it was a Ponzi scheme—did no one ever ask where the money was going and who was paying for the returns?—but I don't think universities and museums should suffer in the fallout.)
I love the cognitive disjunction there, especially since it's actually a perfectly logical three sentences.
Heh. There's also some irony, which I probably should have footnoted: Brandeis had some famously inefficient protests while I was there, of which the best involved a sit-in staged somewhere completely irrelevant, because to do so in the relevant location would have risked getting arrested. I'm sure there is already such a protest being organized around the Rose Art Museum. I just wish I could put together something more useful.
I'd have less of a problem with the idea if America still housed folks like the Arensbergs, who would simply let people come over to their house, wander around, and look at all the Braques and Duchamp hanging on their walls...
Yeah. I have a lot less problem with sand paintings than with publicly donated works disappearing into inaccessibly private collections.
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"Jonathan Novak and David Genser, said they were shocked by the decision and hadn't been alerted in advance. "It's an absolute travesty," Mr. Genser said. 'I'm heartbroken. I would think that anyone who has any feeling for Brandeis or the Rose Museum is devastated by this.'"
But I am not at all surprised. The relationship between Brandeis administrations and this museum has been a vexed one. The renovation referred to above was needed because the museum had been physically neglected for years. I seem to remember that in the 90s there was talk about closing the museum, with others voicing the comment that one administrator made in the recent press release, "the Museum is peripheral to the University's mission." I do remember that the Art History department when I was a student didn't play well with the Abstract Expressionist emphasis of the Museum. There's a more canonical and enthusiastic history at http://www.brandeis.edu/rose/aboutus/history.html
Ironically: it's written in anticipation of the institution's 50th anniversary,as though it were already 2011.
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I was looking at my friendsfriends page, and you commented in a post, and your icon 'Psholtii' made me really excited. No one ever knows what I'm talking about when I talk about The Cuckoo, and it's nice to see someone else appreciate it somehow. :)
So, yes. That's it, that's all I wanted to say.
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That's a totally worthwhile weird comment. The Cuckoo is one of my favorite films; I'm only sorry I don't have as harmonious an icon from it as you do! But I am very fond of Viktor Bychkov's Psholtii.
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Nine
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I don't want this decision to come down to Brandeis or its art. Maybe this will be the kind of folktale with hearts hidden in safe places.
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The Canadian National Portrait Gallery? How did that happen?