Mr. Perez, it is unfortunate that your donation to the Miami Art Museum was not lauded and received as you had expected. Perhaps a lesson on the culture of art in the United States, and the world, might make the situation more clear and understandable for you.
If you look at most of the major city museums in the nation and the world, you will note that few have an individual or family name attached to them. San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago (The Art Institute) Boston, St. Louis, New York (The Metropolitan), MOMA, to name a few. And, to name a few more to drum it into your head, in Rome, you have The City Museum, the Louvre in Paris, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Singapore Art Museum, the Prado in Madrid and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. And every one of those cities has families for whom $35 million would be pocket change. They all deferred to the good of their cities so that their museums would increase the prestige and stature of the city throughout the world. By giving up the naming rights to those museums, major contributors gained in personal stature just being satisfied to be a part of making such fine institutions possible and enabling them to achieve world class standing.
So, if you really want to achieve the recognition you are due, you will ask that your name not be put on to the museum. Instead, let the main gallery carry your name; that would be appropriate and acceptable to all. Let Miami, the major financial contributor, enjoy the national and international prestige it deserves.
Naming a city’s museum is not the same as naming a performance or sports center. It has significance far beyond the local area; it should be a name that pays tribute to the artists, not to the wealthy donors. In this case, the museum should be named for the city where the Museum is located -- where citizens paid dearly for it with funds and their precious park land.
So Jorge, how about we call it the Miami Art Museum?
15 comments:
I disagree!
I wholeheartedly disagree! Thank you Mr. Perz! The arrangement was made between Mr. Perez and the museum staff. They agreed. Thank you.
One of the finest museums of art in the US is the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Retaining expensive law firms and lobbyists, contributing to political election campaigns, rezoning properties to build higher and more units in condominium projects and forever altering the nature of our community to create a financial fortune should not qualify an individual with the honor of naming rights for a public building.
Okay we can all name an art museum -- I will name the Frick -- with a name on it. Before you mention any more names, tell us are they publicly funded?? Did the museum in your example use publicly owned land? These are important details.
anonymous: you said "thank you Mr. Perz".
You made our argument. We should call it the shrine to developer Perz that would be fitting to spell the name wrong. Then it could be THE SDP museum for short.
The differnce between the named musuems cited
by the commentors and the Miami Art Museum is
that they are not city museums; they are private museums. Looks like the commentors did not get
the lesson. Maybe Mr. Perez will.
Don't insult our readers. I deleted you because you don't understand tax money is our money. We write the checks. Bicentennial Park is our land, not Perez's.
Why is no one complaining about the naming of the Phillip Frost Museum of Science to be built next door? Seriously I have not heard a single word anywhere.
Miami Art Museum has no collection and it has no endowment. The new building on taxpayer owned waterfront Bicentennial Park will cost the taxpayers over $500 MILLION when you value the waterfront land and add in the debt service on the bonds needed to finance the building. Jorge Perez is buying a billboard on I-395 that he will use to sell condos.
The taxpayers are getting screwed, as usual.
Wholeheartedly agree with this comment. Miami sells out its greatest public assets to the highest bidder, all of which have been paid for by the taxpayers. We lose the branding of Miami as a great city. Take the Arsht Center, the baseball stadium, MIA (still to be named), etc. Mr. Perez, who has had a great career is hardly in the family of a Carnegie and a Rockefeller as he implied in his interview with the Miami Herald--that is laughable. We could just as well call the new museum the Miami Banana Republic Art Center.
The scam of forcing helpless taxpayers to pay over $500 MILLION to satisfy the egos of small ego board members should be investigated.
How much money has been spent on consultant fees and soft costs? How much is the broke Miami Art Museum in debt?
Who is getting paid off?
What's in a name? that which we will call PAM
By any other name shall smell just as swampy;
Ah, Miami, ever the tart ingenue.... in my 'hood, just east of the Hudson River, we're having a blast with this tempest in a cup of cuban coffee. And one shameless wit decided to come up with a new name for the Miami Art Museum. For what it's worth here it goes: The Papito Art Museum.
Mr. Perez is, evidently, not sufficiently well informed to realize that very few in the world are Gettys or Guggenheims, men who built their museums with endowments that surpass a meager $35 million. This is not unusual in Miami, when almost everyone who has risen socially is an improvised nobody who rose thanks to ambitious politicians who made deals with them... just like Mr. Perez. Thank you, Manny Diaz!
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