Ashley Takacs | Selling cultural cred to the highest bidder

There's gold in them there art museums - but please don't tell the University trustees. As endowments shrivel and budgets tighten, Penn is no doubt looking for ways to make ends meet. But, let's hope they're not eyeing our veritable treasure trove of art, rare books and artifacts as a solution. Most of us can agree that selling these items to replenish the endowment is simply out of the question. And normally, I would trust Penn to protect our cherished archives, but I'm sure that the students at Brandeis made the same assumption.

Last month those students watched helplessly as their university announced that it was closing the Rose Museum - one of Brandeis' greatest cultural (and monetary) assets. The collection's 7,189 works, which included Lichtensteins, Warhols and some recently acquired Richard Serra sculptures, will be liquidated in the coming year as part of a campaign to cover a 25-percent decline in its endowment and a $10-million deficit on this year's budget. The decision made quite a stir in the national news, and rightfully so. After all, the museum, by all accounts, was flourishing. The Rose was not in any financial danger - it was Brandeis that was struggling and it will be Brandeis that receives all of the funds from the auctioned work. And this, to me, sets a worrisome precedent for other schools looking to recoup some losses.

And this is partly because Brandeis' decision, while the most drastic, isn't the first instance of using art as a liquid, not a cultural, asset. Randolph College in Virginia, short on funds and with its accreditation in jeopardy, started selling pieces in 2007 and is currently looking for a partner to share its $100-million art collection, which includes paintings by Georgia O'Keefe and Edward Hopper. Similarly, Fisk University in Tennessee is engaged in a lawsuit over plans to sell off its Georgia O'Keefe paintings.

The American Association of Museums (in which Brandeis, Penn's Anthropology Museum and the Arthur Ross Gallery are members) prohibits accredited museums from selling off any art except to gain the funds to purchase new works. The rule however, doesn't seem to hold up. In effectively eradicating its institution, Brandeis used a loophole to avoid legal ramifications. Randolph College went to court, and won, setting a precedent for future cases.

Such drastic measures are upsetting, not only because students will lose a valuable resource, but also because, in cutting the fat, the university is effectively declaring that art is expendable. This goes against the very mission of institutions of higher education, which should be havens for cultural artifacts - even seemingly useless ones.

Penn certainly has its fair share of treasures that could fetch a pretty penny in auction. Our art collection includes 6,000 works acquired over the past 250 years. Displayed throughout the campus' buildings, these include Durer prints from 1498 and a self-portrait of William Carlos Williams. The Kroiz Gallery in Fisher Fine Arts Library has priceless drawings by Louis Kahn, and a complete collection of drawings from Venturi-Scott Brown. And the Rare Book Library's most recent addition, the Gotham Book Mart, is estimated at $7 million alone.

While there is absolutely no reason to suspect that Penn will be taking after Brandeis any time soon, we should still be aware of the issues at hand. After last semester's brouhaha over 18 research positions at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn said it was a restructuring, employees suggested otherwise), all bets are off.

Students need to make it clear that selling art is not acceptable. Tough times make for tough decisions - but they certainly don't merit bad ones, and in Brandeis' case, destructive ones. And while many are mourning the loss of such a wonderful campus resource, my greatest fear is that Brandeis will soon come out of the media storm unscathed. I worry that its finances will rebound, and its prestige will stay intact. I worry that future classes will not know that the Rose ever existed. And most importantly, I fear that other institutions will think it is OK to treat art collections as dispensable.

Ashley Takacs is a College junior from Buffalo, N.Y. She is the Graphics Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Ash Wednesday appears on Wednesdays. Her email address is takacs@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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