The Art Of Survival

Our universities and art institutions are struggling with disappearing economic resources, just like the rest of us. Martha Teichner takes us on a crash course in How To Stay Afloat 101:

Editor's Note: Due to a error in transcription, a misattribution about Brandeis President Yehuda Reinharz's decision to sell items from the Rose Art Museum was made in the original posting of the video report's transcript. CBSNews.com regrets the error.

"We have at least twenty works of art that are worth tens and tens of millions of dollars," said Michael Rush, director of the university's Rose Art Museum.

That could also be the bad news, with the university facing a $10 million operating deficit, and its endowment worth 25 percent less than a year ago.

"Let's say you could sell it all tomorrow," Martha Teichner asked. "What would you get for it?"

"$175 million, probably more," Rush said.

"Sell it" was exactly what Brandeis President Yehuda Reinharz said he intended to do in order to plug its financial hole. He announced the move January 26.

"This is probably the most difficult decision I've made in 15 years," he said.

The response: A flood of criticism, an emotional town hall meeting, and campus protests that are still ongoing.

"I think that art should be treated greater than a commodity," said student organizer Brian Friedberg.

So is it right or wrong to sell the art to survive, especially given the current financial landscape?

"We just don't believe that selling the picture is the answer," said William Eiland, ethics enforcer for the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), a powerful, art-world watchdog group.

"That's why our policy was made for just these times, when we have this kind of economy, and it is to shore us up in our resolve to protect those collections."

Their position: The only legitimate reason to sell is to buy more art.

"That is just an absolute," Eiland said. "It is an unambiguous policy."

The AAMD can punish members for breaches of its standards, as the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts in New York City found out the hard way …

Carmine Branagan, director of the National Academy, said, "It puts any institution in a very, very, very difficult situation."

"So, you're utterly isolated?" Teichner asked.

"Utterly isolated. Not only can we not receive loans, we cannot send out loans."

Tucked away in an elegant old mansion, the National Academy was founded 184 years ago by artists. To be selected for membership has always been a huge honor.

"So over the last 184 years, as members have been voted in, they give a piece of their work," Branagan said, "thus creating a living historic document of the history of American Art."

And some of that legacy sits in storage, as Branagan showed Teichner a Thomas Eakins self-portrait. "So, all of this work here will remain here and will not be available to the public at all unless we put it out."

"So, it's here in storage, or on your walls or … nothing?" Teichner asked.

"Yes, that's correct," Branagan said.

But facing nearly two and a half million dollars in debts, late last year the Academy decided to do what it's done twice before to bail itself out: sell works from its collection. Its artist members … yes, artists themselves … voted to sell two paintings to cover operating costs.

"It really, in your opinion, came down to, we will close the doors if we don't sell these paintings," Tecihner said.

"Yes."

"And how much was raised by the sale?"

"$13.5 million," said Branagan.

Last Wednesday, it was announced the Academy had agreed to meet AAMD demands. The planned sale of two additional paintings was off.

"No grey area in a bad economy?" Teichner asked.

"No, no," Eiland said. "Once you begin using the collection, of collateralizing the collection, of making it a fungible asset, then it's a slope that is so slippery that you don't wanna go down it."

Which brings us back to Brandeis, where President Jehuda Reinharz is now backtracking, sort of.

The Rose, he says, will remain open, but here's the catch: probably as a student gallery and classroom space, not a museum. The university still says it might have "to sell some artworks."

"Well, it's all about priorities, isn't it? It's, what do you value most?" said prominent Boston attorney Ralph Martin, who graduated from Brandeis, taught there and has been on the Board of Trustees.

"We've frozen salaries, we have a hiring freeze, we've cut expenses. If one of the compromises you're prepared to make is we may have to sell some select works of art, I think most of the community, I think they'll understand that."

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