Now up on HuffPost Arts is Form Foils Function, in which I reach a more forceful, focused conclusion, based upon my prior CultureGrrl musings, about Diller Scofidio + Renfro‘s perplexing plans for the new museum that Eli Broad intends to build in Downtown LA for his 2,000-piece contemporary collection.
Despite my criticism of the design, I have to take issue with Nicolai Ouroussoff‘s statement at the beginning of his own appraisal of The Broad for the NY Times:
Mr. Broad’s reputation as a cultural patron is, to put it politely, subpar.
It’s true that Eli is often exasperatingly exacting and sometimes capricious and difficult to deal with. But he rescued LA MOCA from fiscal oblivion, played a leading role in the creation of LA’s widely acclaimed Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall and bankrolled a cluster of new art facilities—the Piano-designed Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Meier-designed Broad Art Center at UCLA; and the planned Hadid-designed Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. What’s more, he’s been a generous lender of works from his important collection to many nonprofit institutions.
Eli may strike a hard bargain for his money, and he may be in it for the personal glory as well as the public good. But without his support, the cultural life of Los Angeles and the rest of the nation would be much the poorer. In her Broad-bashing report, The Art of the Billionaire: How Eli Broad Took Over Los Angeles, for the New Yorker‘s Dec. 6 issue, Connie Bruck made it appear that Broad had bailed out LA MOCA so he could “gain control of MOCA’s collection.” At the end of her Broad profile, Bruck disdainfully dismissed his cultural philanthropy as an “ill-fitting avocation.”
That this self-made man (whom I’ve previously interviewed in person) likes to call the shots and has a big ego, a strong will and a propensity for ruffling feathers is undeniable. That he has used his substantial resources for the public good (including major grants for education and stem-cell research) is indisputable.
Whatever his faults, Broad deserves substantial recognition and gratitude for his wide-ranging benefactions. The skeptical reception he has received illustrates the tired old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished.”