US: Brandeis Museum closed by stealth

Few things are more poignant than a gem of a museum whose days may be numbered, writes Roberta Smith in the New York Times. So it was at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University on a visit, days after the university's trustees voted unanimously to trash the institution by closing it and auctioning off the 6,000 works in its collection. The action came without consulting either the museum's own board of governors or its director, Michael Rush.

The Brandeis vote was an act of breathtaking stealth and presumption: a raid on a museum that supports itself, raises its own funds and has consistently planned wisely for its own future without leaning on the university. The trustees treated it nonetheless as a disposable asset.

A week ago the only signs of any disturbance were on the exterior of the Rose's dainty, cast-concrete building, which opened in 1961, just 13 years after the university itself was founded. The museum's glass front was festooned with posters that exclaimed, "Don't Close the Rose" and "Fire Sale," the remnants of a student sit-in the day before.
Full report on the New York Times site