Geffen Gift: What’s in a Name?

Forget the TC? Call it the GC? The art community isn’t so sure.

News of entertainment mogul David Geffen’s gift of $5 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art has been greeted with seemingly unanimous approval and gratitude. But renaming the museum’s Temporary Contemporary facility the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA--in accordance with the museum’s offer to him--has drawn decidedly mixed reactions.

“It’s amazing how much $5 million will buy,� said Peter Alexander, a member of the museum’s original artist advisory council, established during the museum’s formation in the 1970s.

Dealer Patricia Faure had a different take: “It’s a wonderful gift, and I like the idea that ‘Temporary’ will be cut out of the name. I always hated that. The TC is the best thing about MOCA, but it is very expensive to operate. I’m so much in favor of holding onto it, if the gift accomplishes that, I guess [the name change] is all right. But to name the building for David Geffen seems excessive in light of more valuable gifts of art they have received from other people.�

Margo Leavin, another longtime Los Angeles dealer, was more critical: “They sold out much too cheap. It’s nice that he’s giving $5 million. It’s a generous amount, but I think it was inappropriate of the museum to offer it for $5 million. It should have been $25 million. If they were naming the bookstore or just an education program or for outreach activities, that would have been fantastic. But to sell out the TC, which is beloved by the art community, is cheap and shortsighted.�

By contrast, Eli Broad, a founding trustee of MOCA and major donor to the museum who now serves as a trustee at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is all for the name change. “I think it’s perfectly appropriate for someone making that size gift who has a great collection. Hopefully some of David’s art will come to MOCA too,� he said. “I think it’s great for the city and great for MOCA. Here you have a man who is single, who doesn’t have any children and probably will have another three-quarters of a billion dollars to give away. This may be the first of many gifts to MOCA.�

What’s more, Broad said, the renaming plan merely reflects a reality of fund-raising. “Most people, I’d say 90% of donors, want recognition of some sort,� he said. “It can be physical, like naming galleries or other spaces--such as the Eli and Edythe Broad Reception Hall at MOCA--or it can be in the form of pictures of the donors or it can be naming a curatorial position at a museum. It’s in the ordinary realm of things. Look at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s buildings. You’ve got Anderson, you’ve got Ahmanson, you’ve got Hammer, you’ve got Bing. That’s the American way.�

Indeed, naming buildings and galleries for donors is a long-established tradition at arts institutions all across the country. In fact, the former Westwood Playhouse was renamed the Geffen Playhouse a year ago when the philanthropist gave $5 million for renovation and programming.

What’s less well known is that it is not at all unusual for a museum to establish a price list of “recognition opportunities� as part of a fund-raising drive, as MOCA has done for its $25-million endowment.

“It’s quite common for museums and universities,� said Christopher Hest, president of Fitzgerald & Graves, a San Francisco-based firm of management consultants to nonprofit associations. He has served as a consultant to MOCA in the past, but is not involved in the current campaign. “Some institutions delay the assignment and publication [of named spaces] until after gifts are committed. But MOCA did it the more conventional way, by determining recognition opportunities in advance.

“This has been a practice for a long time,� Hest said. “Museums for many years opted for very discreet ways of recognizing donors, but a trend in universities to name whole buildings for their best friends has made its way to the arts. Given the size of gifts needed to build and maintain institutions these days, recognition seems to be necessary.�

There is no formula for assigning value to spaces, he said. Campaigns establish parity among donations offered, with the most prestigious spaces bearing the highest sums, but prices do not relate to the cost of the facility to be named. (In contrast, gifts to endowments generally cohere to the expected expenditure of the endowment’s revenue.)

While some critics of MOCA’s arrangement with Geffen have charged that his gift will discourage other donors, Hest said that naming buildings and spaces within them is “considered an encouragement� among fund-raisers. “It provides incentive for people to take note of what others are doing. We have been in the position of asking people who prefer to give anonymously if we could reveal their identities, at least in small circles, where we think it would have a good effect.�

In contrast to many other contemporary art museums that are struggling to stay alive, much less establish healthy endowments, MOCA’s $25-million endowment campaign has been extraordinarily successful. About half the goal had been raised when the campaign was announced in October. With the Geffen gift, the museum now has $19 million committed.

In setting up the campaign, the museum offered 21 “recognition opportunities� to name building spaces. Two additional spaces had already been named for early donors: the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Wing, containing the library, staff offices and board room, at $3 million, and the Thurston Twigg-Smith Gallery, at $1 million.

Naming the exterior of the Temporary Contemporary was most expensive, at $5 million. Gifts of $3 million, the next step down in price, would put a donor’s name on one of five spaces: the TC’s education center and two wings, a court and a gallery at MOCA’s building at California Plaza. Other spaces available range from the TC’s entrance lobby, at $1 million, to a permanent collection storage facility at $250,000.