In 1932, the National Gallery of British Art was renamed the Tate Gallery in tribute to the sugar magnate Henry Tate, who helped lay the foundations of the institution 40 years earlier with a considerable donation of artworks and funding.
The move marked a trend that continues to dominate the arts world, with a slew of institutions paying homage to corporate sponsors – from Sage Gateshead to the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing and the National Theatre’s Dorfman theatre.
But when it was announced last week that one of the most eagerly anticipated new cultural venues in Europe – Factory International in Manchester – would instead be called Aviva Studios after the insurance company acquired naming rights for £35m, reactions were mixed.
Many see the renaming as the antithesis of a city famed for its DIY culture and the bands it gave birth to, such as Joy Division, Stone Roses, the Smiths and Oasis. They believe it is inappropriate for a cutting-edge arts venue, built on the site of the former Granada television studios, to have such a corporate-sounding name and links.
“This is such a poor decision for Manchester,” said Katy Cowan, the editor of Creative Boom, a Manchester-based magazine for the creative industries. “What should have been the proud launch of a new art and cultural icon in the city has been darkened by another corporate marketing team failing to understand the wider context.”
However, supporters of the deal said it was essential to recoup public money, with Manchester city council to receive the biggest share of Aviva’s investment. Money will also go towards supporting plans for a £10 ticket scheme and skills training programmes, while the venue is predicted to create or support as many as 1,500 direct and indirect jobs and add £1.1bn to the city’s economy over a decade.
Funding has come from Manchester’s local government, the UK Treasury and Arts Council England. But costs increased significantly, from £110m in 2017 to £210.8m, and councillors had to approve a £25.2m budget rise with the caveat that it could recover some costs through a “long-term naming rights agreement”.
Last week, Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester council, was quick to emphasise how Aviva “fits our values”, while Factory is said to remain a key part of the brand.
Cowan said: “I understand the requirement to fund such colossal projects – especially post-pandemic and following ongoing cuts to arts funding. But Factory plays such an important part in Manchester’s modern history and culture that naming it after an insurance provider really leaves a bad taste in the mouth and has the potential to backfire catastrophically. To me and many others, it’ll always be Factory.”
Aviva Studios includes a 21 metre-high, 5,000-capacity warehouse venue and a 1,500-seat auditorium, and will be a permanent home for the multidisciplinary Manchester international festival.
It was kickstarted in 2014 by the chancellor at the time, George Osborne, who revealed it would be named after Factory Records – the independent label that released some of Manchester’s most feted bands and ran the Haçienda nightclub. “Anyone who is a child of the 80s will think that this is a great idea,” he said.
But Andy Spinoza, the author of Manchester Unspun, said Aviva Studios was “a long way away from Factory Records’ late 1970s punk gigs in the dystopian Hulme estate”.
He said: “The size, cost and new name of this building has upset those who would have preferred the money in community arts. It certainly makes the city’s open-for-business mindset bracingly clear. Aviva is known for insurance, but as an active funder of office schemes in fast-growth Manchester and Salford, the deal is as much about its property asset management strategy.
“The legacy of Factory’s subversive, avant-garde spirit has, unforeseeably, become official culture, funded by big business, central government and city residents.”
Others pointed to the risks of sponsors acquiring disproportionate interest in the running of arts institutions.
Chris Garrard, a co-director of Culture Unstained, an activist group that works to convince arts institutions to break their links with fossil fuel companies such as BP, said: “Arts institutions must keep in mind that corporate sponsors are not philanthropists – they are profit-making companies making a careful calculation about how and where they can most effectively boost their brands.”
George Trefgarne, a former director of media and research at BP who is now the chief executive of the strategic communications firm Boscobel & Partners, said naming rights “need handling with care by both sides”.
“It is one thing a founder’s name being attached to an institution, like Nuffield or Wolfson,” Trefgarne said. “But renaming an existing body after a corporate can suggest the donor has acquired disproportionate interest for unstraightforward reasons.”
The Aviva deal comes as arts institutions reckon with years of arts funding cuts that have made them more reliant on commercial bodies.
But in an era where protests against corporate sponsorship of the arts have continued to gain traction – from fossil fuels to the fight to force institutions to cut their ties with the Sackler family – campaigners will be poised for any lapses of judgment.
“When sponsors have a role to play, partnerships must be made transparently and on the basis of shared values,” Garrard said. “Otherwise corporate culture can seep unaccountably into spaces where we should be free to engage with art without being advertised or marketed to.”
