As Donald Trump is threatening to demolish the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts unless they put his name on the building, I’m reminded of just how much I dislike the “gift” of giving away the names of arts spaces to wealthy donors. Melbourne has suffered a rash of this, particularly in relation to one name – the deceased Ian Potter and his wife, Primrose Potter. To date, their names, individually or collectively, are on the following buildings:
- Ian Potter Queens Hall, State Library of Victoria
- Ian Potter Southbank Centre, University of Melbourne
- Ian Potter Centre, National Gallery of Victoria – Australia
- Ian Potter Centre for the Performing Arts, Monash University
- Ian Potter Children’s Garden, Melbourne Botanical Gardens
- Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre
- Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
- Ian & Primrose Potter Foyer, Faifax Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne
- Potter Gallery of Art, University of Melbourne
And to add insult to injury, for the comparatively modest sum of $15 million, the State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne is going to be named the Ian Potter State Theatre.
Why aren’t these buildings named after important artists? I’d even be happy to see them named about Arts Ministers or Premiers who ensured that their governments seriously invested in the arts.
When I was at MTC, I was prepared to “sell” the naming rights to various rooms in the building – even toilets – but I wasn’t prepared to give away the theatres or the building itself. Representatives of one wealthy philanthropist who had lost face around the time we were planning to open the Southbank Theatre, approached with an offer of millions of dollars for naming rights. I refused to have anything to do with whitewashing his name although the money would have been very handy. Luckily, the MTC Board supported me in this refusal. We named the theatres after John Sumner, the founding Artistic Director of the company, and Ray Lawler, author of that brilliant play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.
Of course, in any commentary about naming rights, I have to confess that my going away present from MTC was giving my name to the 1st floor foyer bar in the Southbank Theatre. So is it hypocritical of me to wish that the Potter name wasn’t plastered over yet another arts building? Given that the State Theatre is the home of ballet, opera and musical theatre, why isn’t it named after a great historical performer such as Sir Robert Helpmann or the best Artistic Director the Australian Ballet has had such as David McAllister or the great Dame Nellie Melba, born in Melbourne? Why couldn’t the Potter Foundations Trustees be generous, donate money, be recognised with a plaque in a foyer, and offer the name of the building to an artist?
