Whenever I visit an arts institution, my eye always travels down to the last little corner of the always-impressive donor honor roll at the front door. Past the long lists of platinum, gold, silver, and bronze donors, past the major angels, the minor angels, and the mum-and-dad donors, right down to the very bottom and the very last category on the list: ANONYMOUS.
I love that small list. I love those unnamed donors. I love that they dug into their pockets and gave to the gallery, the museum, the library, the ballet, the concert hall, and then said no, no — no name. Don’t worry about writing up my name. They know why they gave what they did. They don’t need anyone else to know about it too.
This week, I was reminded of those lists with the news that the much-loved State Theatre in Melbourne is to re-open earlier than expected after its long refurbishment. It will now be known, as we were told a year ago, as the Ian Potter State Theatre, in recognition of the $15 million that the foundation in his name gave to the institution — the largest single philanthropic gift to an Australian performing arts center in our history.
A Generous Arts Philanthropist
If you don’t live in Melbourne, you may not know that this name appears on a lot of our buildings. Sir Ian Potter was a financier and a generous arts philanthropist, and the charitable foundation he left after his death has supported many arts institutions, as has his generous widow, Lady Primrose Potter.
The foundation hands out tens of millions each year to a broad variety of organizations — from arts grants to early childhood development and medical research and the environment. Many of these grants are quietly but happily shared with the public. But not all. Let me share a list of institutions and spaces that have been named for Ian Potter that I hope is complete:
- The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square
- The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne
- The Ian Potter Southbank Centre, Melbourne Conservatorium
- The Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts, Monash University
- The Ian Potter Children’s Garden, Melbourne Botanic Gardens
- The Ian Potter Room, Graduate House, University of Melbourne
- The Ian Potter Auditorium, University of Melbourne
- The Ian Potter Queens Hall, State Library
- And now the Ian Potter State Theatre at the Arts Centre
Almost all of these are within 2,000 meters of each other. If you go a little further up the Hume Highway to Canberra, you will find Ian Potter House at the Australian Academy of Science; the Ian Potter Conservatory at the Australian National Botanic Gardens; and The Ian Potter Foundation Technology Learning Centre at Questacon.
Load up a podcast and keep driving, and in Sydney, you can hang out at The Ian Potter Children’s Wild Play Garden at Centennial Park. But we’ll need to catch a ferry to get to The Ian Potter Recital Hall at the University of Tasmania. If there are any that I’ve missed, send them along.
A Monotonous Melbourne Tradition
There is no doubting the generosity of this man’s foundation. But with this renaming of the one major performance hall that belongs to the people of Victoria, I fear we are reaching a new benchmark in aggrandizement. I’m quite sure this isn’t the foundation’s intention, but the prevalence of the name now seems more risible than noble, and there are now so many Ian Potter nomenclatures that they cause genuine confusion.
There I was waiting patiently for my sister at the Ian Potter NGV, when she rang me angrily from the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne wondering where I was. A friend of mine enthusiastically recommended the magnificent and landmark exhibition of Aboriginal art, 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, to many people, but quite a number couldn’t find it. It was at The Potter (University); they went to The Potter (Fed Square).
It has now become a rather monotonous Melbourne tradition, and one bordering on the ludicrous: a shuttering, a reno, a re-opening, and whoopsie: now it’s another Sir Ian Potter monument. It is more than faintly absurd: a Monty Python-like tendency to want to call everything “Bruce, just to keep it clear”.
I don’t need to speak to all these institutions to know how pleased they would have been to receive financial support from the Ian Potter foundation; in many cases, some of these places would not have been established but for the money. The beautiful Queens Hall at the State Library, in which I completed all my study for a degree in Fine Arts, would still be shuttered if not for that support from the Foundation.
No Organisation Can Afford to Turn Down Philanthropy
But at a certain point, we must ask the question: what is the purpose of this repeated naming protocol? In the case of Melbourne’s eagerly anticipated contemporary wing of the National Gallery of Victoria, it was named even before construction after its wealthy donors, Lindsay and Paula Fox. But it seems very odd to me that an entirely new arts institution should be called, firstly, by the name of the donor before you even get to a description of what it is: The Fox — NGV Contemporary.
It seems unimaginable in any other Australian city. No matter how much was given, there is not a chance in hell that a renovated Sydney Opera House would be renamed the, say, The Frank Lowy or Justin Hemmes Opera House. The rooms in the Opera House that are named are called only for the peerless artists they celebrate: Joan Sutherland, Joern Utzon. The closest Sydney gets are smaller theatres named for supporters such as Judith Neilson and Roslyn Packer.
The generosity of Sir Ian Potter, his foundation, and family, is more than established and recognized by now: it is, in fact, commonplace. This name surely needs no more elevation. So, are the institutions themselves seeking to curry favor with wealthy donors, and making the renaming offer themselves? In the case of the State Theatre, the renaming offer was made by the Arts Centre itself, and the Foundation insists that it does not require or request naming rights when making grants “of any size”.
“Over the past decade, Australian government arts funding has flatlined or dipped sharply in real per-capita terms, hit hardest by federal cuts that states and local councils have only partly cushioned with their own modest increases.”
No sensible organization can now afford to turn down money or its requirements. So, cash-strapped institutions find themselves between a rock and a hard place with a big name painted on it. But imagine the generosity and the grace of instead celebrating… somebody else?
How wonderful would it be for the money to be given, but for the new name over the door to be the name of the visionary teacher who started the place, or the brilliant student who became one of our stars, or the leading Australian artist the place trained, or the unsung Indigenous ancestor whose land the place is built on?
Imagine the joy generated by recognizing them instead of the money people. Or, most controversially, as one of the gospels and most other faiths teach us — how about doing a good deed, donating all that money, and telling no one at all?
This weekend, don’t take my word for it: listen to Marlene Engelhorn, who grew up as part of one of the wealthiest families in Europe, and is now giving all her money away. Have a safe and happy weekend, and as I struggle to cope with early Christmas cheer in its muzak form, load this up for your party playlist. Just enough jingle bells, just enough rock. Go well.
