A question for a rescheduled Rose Art Museum symposium

When a snow storm barreled into Boston early last week, Brandeis University's imperiled Rose Art Museum had to postpone an all-star literary symposium being convened to analyze the school's headline-making decision to shutter the museum and sell all or part of its modern and contemporary art collection. Now that warmer weather has brought at least a momentary thaw (and plenty of slush), the symposium, "Preserving Trust: Art and the Art Museum Amidst Financial Crisis,” has been rescheduled for March 16. The event will be Webcast live (you can watch it here).

One issue the panelists might want to discuss is the modest level of museum attendance. The low numbers — reportedly about 13,000 to 15,000 annual visitors — might suggest to some that losing the Rose and its art collection wouldn't be so dire. That, however, would be a mistaken impression.

During a visit to the Rose on Sunday afternoon, I witnessed a fairly steady stream of people poking around the permanent collection and taking in several small shows, including a quirky presentation of paintings made in 1950 by German-born American Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann. At 70, he had been hired to work on a mural project in Peru with Spanish-born American architect Josep Sert, who later ran the design program at Harvard. If the subject sounds a bit esoteric, it is — and what of it? Hofmann was an important painter and an influential teacher, but this is not a show designed to bring in crowds. Rather, it's for the art-curious.

The university's shocking announcement in January has no doubt generated an attendance spike. Friends in Waltham, Mass., who live not five minutes from the school accompanied me on their first-ever visit to the Rose, curious about the commotion they'd read about in the paper and heard about on the radio. I'd guess others were satisfying a similar urge.

But why should the state of the museum's general popularity ...

... have anything to do with its reason for being, never mind its fate? Unlike Brandeis, reports are that the Rose Art Museum is in pretty stable financial shape. Costs are covered, the collection (at just over 7,000 works) continues a steady if modest growth. The museum even pledges a percentage of its annual operating budget to the university. For the school it's not a financial drain — just the opposite.

An average rate of about 50 visitors a day might imply that students with course requirements and area art-junkies are the only ones attending. If so, that's OK. With costs covered, the quality of the experience, not the quantity, is what counts.

We have become so accustomed to using pop-culture yardsticks — profitability, celebrity, fashion — to measure the success or failure of art and art museums that it's easy to lose sight of what matters. In fact, a degree of obscurity, relatively speaking, is one of the great charms of the Rose's collection.

Yes, celebrated masterpieces by De Kooning, Johns, Lichtenstein, Hartley, Gris and others are impressive. But so is the weirdly erotic, metallic-hued 1916 Morton Schamberg machine-abstraction. And Florine Stettheimer's delirious fantasy of drawing-room gentility, 1920's “Music.” Bruce Conner's big, lace-trimmed 1963 collage-assemblage of a faded, peeling attic wall is a poignant murmur of the ravages of time, so different in tone and feeling from Robert Rauschenberg's nearby — and far more famous — 1961 Combine, “Second Time Painting,” with its flashy colors and actual, embedded clock.

The diversity and richness of the encounters are what make a museum distinctive. They strike a deep chord. In today's vulnerable economic landscape, a bigger audience base might make the Rose more difficult to abuse. But, really, is a protection racket what art museums in America now require to get by?

Here are some more photos:

"Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950"

Morton Schamberg, "Painting VII," 1916, 19.25 x 15.13 in.

Florine Stettheimer, "Music," 1920, 69 x 50.5 in.

Bruce Conner, "Light Shower," 1963, 65 x 51.5 in.

Bruce Conner, "Light Shower," 1963 (detail: paper, fabric, fur, horsehair, bathing cap, hooks)

— Christopher Knight

Photos: Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Donald Frazell]

If art does not excite the minds, bodies and passions of humanity, its not worth much at all. Hoffman is grossly overrated, see his stuff all the time at the Burkhardt gallery, sterile and irrelevant, fits perfectly in America. Third gerneration watered down modernism at its dullest. The schools survival is far more important than a gallery, the works can go elsewhere, or be dumped in the trash according to long term worth.

And if you find Schambergs silliness erotic, you etiher got sexual issues, or been reading about Duchamp far too much, about what it is supposed to mean, in all its psuedo intellectual glory. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Husband, even" nonsense is what this is, just a bad copy of something that was never art to begin with. But was the beginning of striping nature and god from arts purpose, and so a father of contempt art. Which is now, deservedly, dead.

Most Modern art was bad, same as any other art form at least 90% wil be garbage. Contempt Art being not art at all, simply means it is damn near 100% trash. Post Rauschenberg is almost all nonsense, academic art mediocrity, illustrations of mind games that ignore creative arts purpose of entwining meaning of god, nature and mankind. Instead we got the glorifcation of the invidividual. Resulting in our current economic collapse, captains of "industry", and patrons of the "arts", being grossly overpaid for jobs they have convinced others that they were necessary for to promote growth, when they were only promioting themselves, very replacable. No one is irreplacable. And most art is also.

The real art wont be destroyed, if this museums cant survive and serve the community and others, it doesnt deserve to survive, let it works go elsewhere We ahve a glut of wall space in museums now, lets weed out the trash, close the non functioning entitites, get better collections, and hopefuly begin to promote true art again. Instead of the art academy/gallery/museum complex of self interest. Wish Eisenhower had warned us of this, as much as the military/industrial one, it began during his terms in office.

arrt collegia delenda est

[Anonymous]

You are absolutely correct: University museums are apples to the oranges of other civic museums. University collections have been put together primarily through donations by individuals, such as alumni, with one purpose: to ensure that those specific objects are to be put in front of developing college students in perpetuity as part of their visual education. University collections are quite special in this very targeted regard. Because of Brandeis' unfailing eye over the years, they have carefully put together a very special collection which encompasses objects that are constantly pursued as loaning objects. Brandeis' masterpieces hang on the walls of museums all over the world and represent and brand Brandeis as a world-class institution. To strip the University of this jewel in the crown should be - and may prove to be - illegal. University collections have never been about "blockbuster" foot traffic. These collections are used throughout the institution for scholarly use. Classes interact with the objects as do faculty.

This is the culture we fought for: a culture that understands the importance of these special institutions that can not be replaced once dismantled. If sold, these objects (which belong together through the intention of their donors) would be dispersed into private homes around the world never to be seen again. This is not the culture I want to live in.

You read of historical atrocities of dictators and world wars and the horrible scars left on cultures as a result. Are we really going to let a little recession allow these hypocrites who call themselves University administrators to turn our deeply imbedded cultural currency into quick cash?

[Donald Frazell]

What do dictators and world wars have to do with this? Talk about typical artiste hyperbole, there is no destruction, not "degenerate" art shows to get rid of unwanted ideas. Though much of this is trash that should be, but will be by natural selection soon enough.

And scholars are the last ones i want to have works of art closeted for their own self glorification. Talk about Pharises, those entrusted to acquired human knowledge with no clue about what it is all about. It is critics an "scholars' that have led art into the disaster in art and economics and human worth we see today. Pseudo intellectuals, those tied to ideas and words and books, who havent a clue about understanding the visual language, ones of passion, god, and defining mankind.

They are the very problem, and the works that have lasted should be redistributed to where people can make their own minds up, not some idiot trying for career by some "revolutionary" theory. They like illustrations of their dumb ideas, and that is what art has become. Nothing. Let the people decide, it is for Us, not Them. If it doesnt speak to a broad humanity, regardless of education, class, language or ethnicity, its not creative art.

art collegia delenda est

[Tom]

Donald Frazell, you say, "And scholars are the last ones i want to have works of art closeted for their own self glorification." Are you talking about the Rose collection? Because if the pieces are sold, there is a chance they can go to private collectors, therefore doing exactly what you propose would happen if the pieces are NOT sold. Unless I'm misunderstanding your point.

Also, dismissal of most modern art and all contemporary art appears to be unfounded. What are some specific, good examples of modernism? I'm no fan of contemporary art, either, but I refuse to dismiss all of it simply because I view it as "trash." You also seem to be under the pretense that since the university is struggling, the collection should be sold. (Of course, you are ignoring the fact that some pieces are donated and may not be allowed to be sold.) Are you suggesting that this should only happen at this museum? Or at all institutions that need the money? Should museums sell art to fix mismanagement?

Overall, your ideas on modernism and contemporary art are infantile. To say you do not like it is fine, but I doubt you are an authority on mainstream America, gallery practices, the so called "art academy/gallery/museum complex of self interest," or any of the other issues you care to touch upon. Ultimately I find that you come off as arrogant as the "pseudo-intellectuals" you complain about.

[A Contemporary Artist]

This is a response to the comments made by "Anonymous". I will keep this short and to the point. I disagreed with just about all of what you said. However, I am only going to address a few minor issues I have. If you want your views to be taken into consideration by others, you may want to consider things such as grammar and spelling. Just because the overall majority now mutilates the English language in e-mails, instant messages, and text messages does not mean you have to as well.

But, then again you seem to share the overall, uninformed consensus that contemporary art is not art; so maybe the shoe fits after all. The fact is that there is good art and bad art in every age and genre. You're probably one of those people who thinks the only "good artists" are those who can make something look "real". In case you weren't aware, Picasso, who is considered by many to be the father of Modern Art, was classically trained (meaning he could make things look real).

By the way, it's called "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Grooms, Even". Get your facts right before you make blanket statements.

[BT]

Re: post by "A Contemporary Artist." You've besmirched the name of "Anonymous"! Your comments actually seem to be addressing a post signed by Donald Frazell, who is well known to readers of this blog as a "troll," i.e., one who repeatedly posts outrageous nonsense to get a rise out of others.

[Donald Frazell]

Not a troll at all, but to the ignorant who dont even know their own craft, its purpose, its history, its relevance to humanity, I guess Truth feels like that.

Feels more like Sysphus, a Titan dealing with stupid lil wannabe gods who are too big for their britges. But the Titans day has come, yours is over. The Gotterdammerung of the Contempt age has arrived.

art colleges must be destroyed