From our Late to the Party desk:

This dispatch from CultureGrrl ran last week in ArtsJournal.

MeTube: Rose Art Museum (and its former director) in Recovery Mode

CultureGrrl visited the Rose and said this, in part:

I dropped in, impromptu, on my way home after viewing the new Norman Foster addition to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. (Patience, art-lings! I’ll take you there in a future post.) After I made my presence known to a student receptionist, I was joined by Roy [Dawes] and Dabney [Hailey]. By the time we met, I had admired most of the Rose’s two very hastily but expertly assembled and rewarding exhibitions—“Waterways” and “Regarding Painting” (to Apr. 3 and May 22, respectively).

While she was there, CultureGrrl had a chat with Rose directors Dawes and Hailey:

In our videoed conversation, you’ll hear Roy and Dabney discuss Brandeis’ announced plans to rent parts of the collection, in deals to be brokered by Sotheby’s. (So far, no works have left the building.) They describe in some detail their laudable efforts to integrate the Rose more fully into the academic life of the university, so that no one ever again regards the museum, once targeted for closure, as expendable.

Dawes told me he hadn’t “heard a peep from Sotheby’s” about any rental nibbles. He regards the fact that Hailey’s new position was created and that a search committee has been formed to find a new permanent director for the Rose as signs that the financially pressed university is committed to the museum’s future. Hailey (speaking off-camera but on-the-record) also takes encouragement from the fact that Brandeis’ incoming president, Frederick Lawrence (who starts on Jan. 1), is “very involved in the arts community. I enjoyed looking at art with him. He was very insightful.”

According to Dawes, an expansion designed by Shigeru Ban several years ago (but now on hold) is still not off the table.

Video:

So is the Rose still in bloom? You be the judge.