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Jeffrey Deitch

Jeffrey Deitch
Jeffrey Deitch
Deitch in 2007
Born (1952-07-09) July 9, 1952 (age 72)
Hartford, Connecticut, US
Alma materWesleyan University (1974); Harvard Business School (1978)
Occupation(s)art dealer, curator
Years active1972-
Websitedeitch.com

Jeffrey Deitch (pronounced DIE-tch;[1] born July 9, 1952) is an American art dealer and curator. He is best known for his gallery Deitch Projects (1996–2010) and curating groundbreaking exhibitions such as Lives (1975) and Post Human (1992), the latter of which has been credited with introducing the concept of "posthumanism" to popular culture.[2][3] In 2010, ArtReview named him as the twelfth most influential person in the international art world.[4]

Deitch has been closely associated with artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jeff Koons. From 2010 to 2013, he served as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).[5] He currently owns and directs Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, an art gallery with locations in New York and Los Angeles.[6]

Early life and education

Deitch was born on July 9, 1952, and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where his father ran a heating oil and coal company and his mother was an economist.[7] He attended public high school in West Hartford, Connecticut, from 1967 to 1970. He was an exchange student in Paris in 1968,[8] and in Japan in 1969.[7] He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1974 and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978.[9]

Career

Deitch opened his first gallery as a college student in 1972 at the Curtis Inn, a rented hotel parlor in Lenox, Massachusetts,[7] and sold out the first week. Fascinated by the work of Andy Warhol and other contemporary artists,[10] he later moved to New York and worked as a receptionist at John Weber Gallery in SoHo.[11] From 1979 to 1988, Deitch helped develop and co-manage the art advisory and art finance department at Citibank.[12][13] In this capacity, he lent money to major art collectors and facilitated loans to small galleries like Gracie Mansion for its 1984 renovation.[14][15] Having become a regular at Warhol’s Factory, Deitch also introduced Warhol to a number of wealthy clients to draw their portraits.[10] In 2022, he appeared in the documentary series The Andy Warhol Diaries to discuss their friendship.[16]

Deitch was also a friend of and art dealer for Jean-Michel Basquiat. He was the first dealer to buy a work by the artist[17] and the first person to write about his work in print.[18][19] He later delivered the eulogy at Basquiat's funeral[19][20] and served on the artwork authentication committee for the artist's estate.[1]

From 1988 to 1996, Deitch was a successful private dealer and art adviser to a number of collectors,[21] including Jose Mugrabi.[22][14] As advisor to Goldman Sachs for the public art in its 200 West Street New York headquarters in 2006, Deitch helped to realize Julie Mehretu's 80-foot-long work "Mural",[23] described by one critic as "one of the largest and most successful public art works in recent times".[24]

In 1989, he bid US$10.5 million and paid $11.55 million for Jackson Pollock's silvery No. 8, 1950, then a record at auction for a work by the artist and the second-highest price at auction for a work by any contemporary artist.[25] In 2006, he bought Bridget Riley's Untitled (Diagonal Curve) (1966), at Sotheby's for $2.1 million, nearly three times its $730,000 high estimate and also a record for the artist.[26]

Over his career, Deitch has crafted for himself a unique role that merges curatorial profile with the business side of art.[27]

Curatorial projects

Since 1975, Deitch has curated exhibitions internationally. Among his most celebrated projects are Lives (1975),[28] Born in Boston (1979),[29] New Portrait (1984) at Moma PS1,[30] and Form Follows Fiction (2001) at Castello di Rivoli, Turin.[31]

Between 1988 and 2008, Deitch curated numerous shows at Deste Foundation, Athens, including:

  • Cultural Geometry (1988)[32]
  • Psychological Abstraction (1989)[33]
  • Artificial Nature (1990)[34]
  • Post Human (1992)[35]
  • Everything that’s Interesting is New (1996)[36][37]
  • Fractured Figure (2007-2008)[38]

In addition to Deste, Post Human was presented at five venues, including the Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), and The Israel Museum (Jerusalem).[39] Philosopher Rosi Braidotti and others credit the show with introducing the term "posthuman" into the popular consciousness.[3][40]

In 1995, he wrote the strategic plan for the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.[41] His other curatorial projects have included the Venice Biennale's Aperto (1993),[42] City as Studio (K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, 2023),[43] and Confluence (Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai, 2023), collaborating with poet Ranjit Hoskote on the latter.[44]

Deitch is known as an advocate for street art and has headed several influential public art projects with street artists.[11][45] He initiated Wynwood Walls with Tony Goldman in Miami in 2009[45][46] and Coney Art Walls on Coney Island in New York in 2015.[47]

Art writing

In 1980, he became a regular columnist of Flash Art and the first U.S. editor of Flash Art International. His writings have appeared in numerous international magazines, including Art in America, Artforum, Garage, Interview magazine, Kaleidoscope, Paper magazine, and Purple magazine.

Deitch Projects (1996–2010)

In 1996, Deitch opened Deitch Projects in SoHo in New York City. He stated in a later interview that he was inspired by the example of Warhol's Factory to try to "create space for another generation of misfits."[10] His first shows included works by Vanessa Beecroft, Jocelyn Taylor, Nari Ward, Yoko Ono, and Mariko Mori.[48][49] Soon after, he bought the building housing Canal Lumber, a bigger space around the corner on Wooster Street. The first major exhibition project there was of a Barbara Kruger video-and-slide-projection show in 1997.[7]

An early advocate of graffiti art in the 1980s, he later introduced New York to the style of street art which had originated in San Francisco in the 1990s among artists on the fringe of the skateboard scene.[50] Deitch became well known as a supporter of young artists like Kehinde Wiley and Cecily Brown, while also representing the work of more established artists like Keith Haring and Jeff Koons. In the 1990s, Deitch helped fund Koons' expensive “Celebration series” and also organized the artist’s 50th birthday party at his gallery.[51][52]

In conjunction with Creative Time and Paper Magazine, Deitch Projects also organized SoHo's annual Art Parade, with over 1,000 participants from 2005 to 2008.[53][54]

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

In 2010, Jeffery Deitch was appointed Director to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), which was seeking to recover from low attendance and a near-bankruptcy following the Great Recession.[11][53] Before stepping into the new role, Deitch closed Deitch Projects and also resigned from the Basquiat authentication committee.[1]

During his three-year tenure, Deitch advised and curated seminal exhibitions such as Dennis Hopper: Double Standard (2010),[55] The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Warhol (2012)[56] and Art in the Streets (2011), the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art.[57] In 2013, he helped organize a show by Urs Fischer in which the artist collaborated with 1000 LA residents to fill an exhibition space with clay figures.[58] Additionally, Deitch conceived MOCAtv, the first original YouTube channel dedicated to fine art.[59] Deitch donated his after-tax salary back to the museum throughout his tenure.[60]

By 2012, Deitch's directorship led to what one commentator called a "cultural collision" between Deitch's more popular art tastes and MOCA's previous interests.[53][61][62] Though Deitch was acknowledged to have boosted museum attendance to record levels, critics charged that MOCA's shows sometimes prioritized popular exhibits over artists who were well-known in the LA art scene or over more traditional scholarly concerns.[53] In 2012, as the conflict grew, MOCA's board of trustees unanimously voted to ask for the resignation of its longtime chief curator Paul Schimmel, leading to the resignation of four artists on MOCA's board in protest.[53][63] Deitch resigned from MOCA the following year.[62]

Return to art dealing

In 2014, Deitch published Live the Art on the 15-year history of Deitch Projects.[64][65] In 2015, he began hosting shows at 76 Grand Street in New York, one of his former gallery spaces. In July 2016, he reopened his Lower Manhattan gallery at 18 Wooster Street, the space he ran from 1996 to 2010 and rented out to the Swiss Institute for the following five years.[66] Deitch now runs the two spaces under Jeffrey Deitch Inc. Since reopening the gallery, Deitch has organized exhibitions by Ai Weiwei, Kenny Scharf, Austin Lee, Bisa Butler,[67] Kenturah Davis,[68] Sasha Gordon,[69] Kennedy Yanko,[70] and Walter Robinson, among others.[71]

Every year, during Art Basel Miami Beach, Deitch's gallery collaborates with art dealer Larry Gagosian on a thematic exhibition. From 2015 to 2021, the exhibitions were housed in The Moore Building of Miami's Design District.[72]

In 2018, Deitch opened a new 15,000-square-foot (1,400-square-metre) space in Hollywood, designed by Frank Gehry, specifically to mount what he described as "museum-level" exhibitions.[73] The gallery was inaugurated with a solo exhibition of Ai Weiwei, followed by shows by Urs Fischer, Judy Chicago,[74] Robert Longo,[75] Nadia Lee Cohen,[76] George Clinton,[77] and Refik Anadol, among others.[78] The gallery has also organized large-scale thematic exhibitions such as Shattered Glass (curated by AJ Girard and Melahn Frierson),[79] 2021), Clay Pop (curated by Alia Dahl, 2022),[80][81] and Wonder Women (curated by Kathy Huang, 2023).[82]

In 2019, Deitch edited Unrealism, a publication on new figurative painting featuring the most groundbreaking contemporary artists and their important predecessors.[83] The following year, he conceived the creation of the Gallery Association Los Angeles (GALA), to "generate excitement about the L.A. gallery scene" and shared his idea with a group of gallerists in Los Angeles.[84] In May 2020, GALA launched galleryplatform.la, an online platform that serves the dynamic Los Angeles art community with editorial content and rotating online viewing rooms.[85] In 2022, Deitch opened a second location in a historic building on Santa Monica Boulevard, the former home of Radio Recorders, a studio that recorded Elvis Presley and Billie Holiday, among others.[86]

Periodically, Deitch hosts artisan marketplaces in the back courtyard of his flagship Los Angeles location.[87]

References

  1. ^ a b c Mike Boehm (January 12, 2010), L.A.'s MOCA picks art dealer Jeffrey Deitch as director Los Angeles Times.
  2. ^ Tomkins, Calvin (November 5, 2007). "A fool for art. Jeffrey Deitch and the exuberance of the art market". The New Yorker.
  3. ^ a b Braidotti, Rosi. Feminismo posthumano. Spain, GEDISA, 2022.
  4. ^ "Power 100". ArtReview. 2010. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  5. ^ Mike Boehm (July 23, 2003). "Jeffrey Deitch resigns as head of L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  6. ^ "Jeffrey Deitch". deitch.com.
  7. ^ a b c d Carl Swanson (January 13, 2014), Jeffrey Deitch Curates Jeffrey Deitch: The Return of the Art World's Most Essential Zelig New York Magazine.
  8. ^ JEFFREY DEITCH with David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro The Brooklyn Rail, October 3, 2013.
  9. ^ "When Art Met Finance How Jeffrey Deitch, Citibank, and Christo created the art market as we know it". HBS Alumni. August 1, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2020.
  10. ^ a b c Finkel, Jori (June 7, 2010). "His Pop idol". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  11. ^ a b c Randy Kennedy (June 30, 2010), Museum Role Fits a Former Art Dealer The New York Times.
  12. ^ "Our Staff: Jeffrey Deitch". deitch.com. Archived from the original on August 30, 2013. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  13. ^ Cathleen McGuigan (February 10, 1985), New Art, New Money The New York Times.
  14. ^ a b Crow, Kelly (January 4, 2008). "The Man With 800 Warhols". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  15. ^ Bourland, Ian (July 8, 2019). "Sur Rodney (Sur) on Freaking Out the Art World". Frieze.
  16. ^ Rees, Lucy (March 11, 2002). "Get a Rare Glimpse into Andy Warhol's Secret Inner Life with This New Netflix Show". Galerie. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  17. ^ "The Art Angle Podcast: Jeffrey Deitch on How to Succeed in the Art Industry". artnet. December 18, 2020. Retrieved August 8, 2023. Widely considered to be the first person who bought a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat (he was also the first to write about him in a 1980 essay for Art in America)
  18. ^ Deitch, Jeffrey (September 1980). "Report from Times Square". Art in America: 61.
  19. ^ a b Tompkins, Calvin (November 5, 2007). "A fool for Art. Jeffrey Deitch and the exuberance of the art market". The New Yorker.
  20. ^ Goldstein, Andrew (November 13, 2008). "Jeffrey Deitch Wants a Basquiat in the White House". Vulture. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  21. ^ Calvin Tomkins (November 12, 2007), Onward and Upward with the Arts The New Yorker, p. 65.
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  26. ^ Carol Vogel (June 26, 2006), Prosperity Sets the Tone at London Auctions The New York Times.
  27. ^ Grau, Donatien (October 3, 2014). "Jeffrey Deitch". Flash Art.
  28. ^ "Lives". Jeffery Deitch.
  29. ^ "Born in Boston". Jeffery Deitch.
  30. ^ "New Portrait". The Museum of Modern Art.
  31. ^ "Form Follows Fiction. Forma e Finzione dell'Arte di Oggi". Castello di Rivoli.
  32. ^ "Cultural Geometry". Deste Foundation.
  33. ^ "Psychological Abstraction". Deste Foundation.
  34. ^ "Artificial Nature". Deste Foundation.
  35. ^ "Post Human". Deste Foundation.
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  37. ^ Janus, Elizabeth (September 6, 1996). "Everything that's Interesting is New: The Dakis Joannou Collection". Frieze (29). Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  38. ^ "Fractured Figure". Deste Foundation. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
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  40. ^ Aloi, Gregory (2020). Posthumanism in Art and Science. Columbia University Press. p. iii.
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  42. ^ Carol Vogel (June 12, 1993), "The Venice Biennale: An Art Bazaar Abuzz", The New York Times.
  43. ^ "Picturing the Urban Landscape: City as Studio". ArtReview. April 28, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  44. ^ Vyasan, Navneet (April 2, 2023). "NMACC's Dedicated Visual Art Space, Art House, Inaugurated With The Exhibit 'Sangam/ Confluence'". News18. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  45. ^ a b Laster, Paul (October 3, 2019). "How the Wynwood Walls Have Shaped Miami's Art Scene". Architectural Digest. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  46. ^ Christine, Theresa (2019). "The Woman Behind The Wynwood Walls: Celebrating 10 Years Of Miami's Thriving Art Scene". Forbes. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  47. ^ Kennedy, Randy (April 29, 2015). "Jeffrey Deitch Will Bring Street-Art Show to Coney Island". The New York Times. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  48. ^ Roberta Smith (May 26, 1996), The Gallery Doors Open to the Long Denied The New York Times.
  49. ^ Feuer, Alan; Pogrebin, Robin (December 15, 2006). "Yoko Ono's double life". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2023.
  50. ^ Roberta Smith (January 11, 2010), A New Boss, and a Jolt of Real-World Expertise The New York Times.
  51. ^ Alexandra Peers (January 20, 2010), How Jeffrey Deitch's MOCA Appointment Changes the Art World New York Magazine.
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  79. ^ Pogrebin, Robin (May 11, 2021). "A Gallery Featuring Only Artists of Color Feels Like Change". The New York Times.
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  82. ^ Binlot, Ann (May 23, 2022). "Tired of being 'fetishized and invisible,' Asian artists are changing the narrative". CNN. Retrieved August 22, 2023.
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  86. ^ Finkel, Jori (February 16, 2023). "Wheeling and dealing: Los Angeles galleries move into old car showrooms". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 20, 2023.
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