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"You can't do this piecemeal"

By Intellectual Property Law, Esq.

In a post yesterday, I said:

"I wonder if the taboo against selling individual pieces might not have contributed, in some small way, to Brandeis's decision to close the museum? If they could have sold five or ten of the most valuable works without controversy, might the trustees have reached a different conclusion?"

This morning Richard Lacayo posts an interview with Michael Rush, the Rose's director, which includes the following:

"You can't solve a shortfall problem by selling, say, our Lichtenstein and still maintain yourself legally and ethically as a museum. I think that's what's behind the decision to do something drastic and close the museum.

"Over the last couple of years we went through one very meticulous deaccessioning. It involved some art that was not part of our mission and had never been shown in the museum but that happened to be valuable. We got in before the market crashed. We went through several meticulous processes there, with donors, with boards, with lawyers, with the AAMD.

"So the university, from the top down, was intimately familiar with deaccessioning processes. And I think that, rather than go through the scrutiny that would accompany the sale of a few paintings, they decided instead on what I'm sure they felt would be a one-shot situation of horrible feedback over closing the museum. As draconian as it may seem, I think that closing the museum was what they were advised, legally, to do. You can't do this piecemeal."

Full post as published by The Art Law Blog on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).