In an editorial dated tomorrow (Sunday) but online tonight, the Boston Globe has strongly endorsed Rent-a-Rose, demonstrating a shocking lack of comprehension of why Brandeis is seeking to monetize the Rose Art Museum’s collection. After the university incurred widespread condemnation for its initial plan to sell all or some of its collection to address Brandeis’ broader financial problems, it now has decided to explore the idea of leasing out some of the collection (with Sotheby’s help) to those who will pay to display. (The Globe pundits eschew the word “rent,” preferring to describe this as “lending” and “collecting fees.”)
Here’s the clueless editorial’s astonishing last paragraph:
Some caveats apply: Brandeis should only lend to institutions capable of
caring for its artworks [duh]. And it should use any revenues to guarantee a
future for the Rose. Because the economics of maintaining a museum can
be forbidding, Brandeis deserves praise, not criticism, for trying to
raise revenue through its collection.
Whoever wrote this muddled analysis is apparently ignorant of the fact that monetizing the collection never was and never will be about the “economics of maintaining a museum.” From all accounts I’ve seen, the Rose’s operations have been financially sound, not a drain on the university’s budget. This dubious expedient was all about milking the collection as a cash cow to address university-wide shortfalls, after Brandeis took a hit that was not only recession-caused but also Madoff-related.
Calling on the university to “use any revenues” for the Rose demonstrates the editorial writers’ complete lack of understanding of the trustees’ motives. In a concession to Rose supporters, the university now promises to apply some of the rental funds to “directly benefit both the museum and
the university’s Department of Fine Arts.” But the bulk of the money would go towards addressing the university’s financial problems.
In his Boston Globe article that broke the story about the new rental plan, Geoff Edgers (who also avoided the “R” word, calling it lending, not renting) got the facts right: He related the art-for-cash gambit to the fact that “the university [not the Rose] has an annual structural deficit of between $10 million
and $15 million.” The editorial writers should have read their own reporter’s account before running off half-cocked.
The fact of the matter is that Rose isn’t dragging the university down. It’s the other way around. The Globe’s wrong-headed, misleading editorial needs to be followed up immediately with a published correction. They are seeking to rally support for the problematic gambit based on mistaken assumptions.
Rent-a-Rose was one of the three hot-button issues that, in yesterday’s post, I urged the Association of Art Museum Directors to grapple with at its annual meeting, which starts tomorrow. I first found out about the Globe editorial from a posting on the Twitter page of the director of the museum in the city where the meeting will take place—Max Anderson of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
This was Max’s pithy tweeted response to the Globe’s editorial:
Anemic biz model, and bad call to boot.