Welcome to the intersection of art, ego, philanthropy and jealousy. It’s where you’ll find the Jorge M. Perez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County.
My initial reaction to renaming the Miami Art Museum for Jorge Perez was negative. Why should our stunning new $225 million civic art museum — with $103 million coming from taxpayers — be named for any individual, no matter how generous his donation? The decision by MAM’s board of trustees to change the name struck me as weak-kneed and wrong-headed. And the requirement by Perez to do so as arrogant and self-aggrandizing. I said as much on TV.
But I’ve reconsidered. After speaking to Perez and looking at how other arts institutions are funded here and across the country, I’ve concluded that Perez should be thanked, not condemned for his $35 million gift to MAM. If the price is for the museum to bear his name, hang his art and be his legacy, well, why not? He’s certainly not the first South Florida art patron to make a deal like this. The Arsht Center? Taxpayers kicked in about $440 million toward the PAC and Adrienne Arsht got her name on it for $30 million, supplanting Carnival Cruise Lines, which had given $20 million.
The new Frost Museum of Science, to be built across from the Perez Art Museum, honors Pat and Phil Frost for their $35 million contribution. There appears to be a $35 million threshold here for naming rights, and Perez has met it, although he’s doing it on the installment plan — $20 million over 10 years and his $15 million art collection. Still, it all adds up to the requisite magic number. You can’t really change the rules in the middle of the game, which is what his critics seem to want.
Like those critics, there’s part of me that rebels against having Miami’s main civic art museum named for anyone except those who mainly paid for it. But we can’t really call it the Taxpayers’ Art Museum of Miami-Dade, can we? Many years ago when the Metropolitan in New York or the Art Institute of Chicago or the Louvre in Paris or Prado in Madrid were created they were paid for by the cities that built them because they were tangible symbols of culture and achievement. Wealthy art lovers contributed money and works of art, but didn’t expect civic museums to carry their names. A wing, a gallery, a plaza, yes. The entire museum, no.
But times have changed. Museums along with other cultural, academic, medical and academic institutions are now more often than not paid for by a major donor who gets his or her name on the edifice. Locally, think of the Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami ($100 million from the Lennar founder Leonard Miller and family); The Frost Art Museum at Florida International University (Pat and Phil Frost once again), the Lowe Art Museum at UM and the Bass Museum on Miami Beach. Joe Robbie Stadium. There are, of course, exceptions. Lin and the late Ted Arison started and continue to sustain the New World Symphony.
Jorge Perez tells me some of the furor over the MAM renaming may have to do with his Hispanic heritage. “You know, the name Perez is new to Miami’s philanthropic society,” he said. “I think we need names of Latin descent to go hand in hand with great Anglo and Jewish names that have shown generosity in the past.”
It’s possible there could be an anti-Cuban tinge to the criticism, although I don’t see it. Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz, prominent art collectors who’ve been outspoken about the MAM name change, are proudly Cuban American. I suspect some part of the criticism is because of Perez’s role as a major real-estate developer who got very rich by helping overheat the housing market . But as he points out, when it cooled down he lost three-quarters of his wealth. And still ponied up $20 million in cash and art worth $15 million. “That’s art I look at every day,” he says, “art that I have an emotional attachment to.”
He’ll be able to see it, as will we, at the Jorge M. Perez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County. Got a problem with that? I did at first, but I’m OK with it now.
