Jeffrey Deitch (pronounced ''DIE-tch'';Mike Boehm (January 12, 2010)
L.A.'s MOCA picks art dealer Jeffrey Deitch as director
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

''. born 1952) is an American art dealer and

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

. He is best known for his gallery Deitch Projects (1996–2010) and curating groundbreaking exhibitions such as ''Lives'' (1975) and ''Post Human'' (1992). Deitch was director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) from 2010 to 2013. He currently owns and directs Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, an art gallery with locations in New York and Los Angeles.

Early life and education

Deitch was born in 1952 and grew up in

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, where his father ran a heating-oil and coal company and his mother was an economist.Carl Swanson (January 13, 2014)
Jeffrey Deitch Curates Jeffrey Deitch: The Return of the Art World's Most Essential Zelig
''

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''. He attended public high school in

West Hartford, Connecticut West Hartford is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, west of downtown Hartford. The population was 64,083 at the 2020 census. The town's popular downtown area is colloquially known as "West Hartford Center," or simply "The ...

, from 1967 to 1970. He was an exchange student in Paris in 1968, and in Japan in 1969. He graduated from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the c ...

in 1974 and received an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

in 1978.

Career

Deitch opened his first gallery as a college student in 1972 at the Curtis Hotel, a rented hotel parlor in

Lenox, Massachusetts Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The town is based in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company and ...

, and sold out the first week. He later moved to New York and worked as a receptionist at John Weber Gallery in SoHo. From 1979 to 1988, Deitch helped develop and co-manage the art advisory and art finance department at

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City Ba ...

. In this capacity, he lent money to small galleries like Gracie Mansion on Avenue A for its 1984 renovation. From 1988 to 1996 Deitch was a successful private dealer and art adviser to a number of collectors, including Jose Mugrabi. In 1989, he bid US$10.5 million and paid $11.55 million for

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a ho ...

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

Curatorial projects

Since 1975, Deitch has curated exhibition internationally. Among his most celebrated projects are ''Lives'' (1975), ''Born in Boston'' (1979), ''New Portrait'' (1984) at

Moma PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...

, and ''Form Follows Fiction'' (2001) at Castello di Rivoli, Turin. Between 1988 and 1992, Deitch curated several shows at

Deste Foundation Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art is an arts foundation in Nea Ionia, a northern suburb of Athens, Greece. Housing the art collection of Greek businessman Dakis Joannou, it organizes exhibitions with the collection and commissions n ...

, Athens. Among them, ''Cultural Geometry'' (1988), ''Psychological Abstraction'' (1989), ''Artificial Nature'' (1990), and ''Post Human'' (1992). He also served as one of the curators of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

's ''Aperto'' section in 1993.

Art writing

In 1980, he became a regular columnist of '' Flash Art'' and the first U.S. editor of Flash Art International. The same year he wrote one of the first press mentions of Jean-Michel Basquiat in the article "Report from Times Square," covering ''

The Times Square Show ''The Times Square Show'' was an influential collaborative, self-curated, and self-generated art exhibition held by New York artists' group Colab (aka Collaborative Projects, Inc) in Times Square in a shuttered massage parlor at 201 W. 41st and ...

'' for '' Art in America.'' His writings have appeared on numerous international magazines: ''Art in America'', '' Artforum,'' ''Garage'', ''Interview'' magazine, ''Kaleidoscope'', ''Paper'' magazine, and ''Purple'' magazine.

Deitch Projects (1996–2010)

In 1996 Deitch opened the Deitch Projects gallery in the

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

section of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. His first shows included works by Vanessa Beecroft, Jocelyn Taylor,

Nari Ward Nari Ward (born 1963 in St. Andrew, Jamaica) is an American artist based in New York City. His work is often composed of found objects from his neighborhood, and "address issues related to consumer culture, poverty, and race". He is a distingui ...

, and Mariko Mori. 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 the fall of 1997. An early advocate of graffiti art in the 1980s, he later introduced New York to the style of

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

which had originated in San Francisco in the 1990s among artists on the fringe of the skateboard scene. 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 Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

and Jeff Koons (Deitch threw Koons' 50th birthday party). 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. In 2009, he wrote the strategic plan for the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. In 2014, Deitch published ''Live the Art'' on the 15-years history of Deitch Projects.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

In 2010 Jeffery Deitch was appointed Director to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). Deitch closed Deitch Projects and also resigned from the authentication committee of the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat; he was a close friend of the artist. During his three-years tenure, Deitch advised and curated seminal exhibitions such as ''The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Warhol'' (2012) and '' Art in the Streets'' (2011), the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art. Additionally, Deitch conceived MOCAtv, the first original YouTube channel dedicated to fine art. There was controversy about Deitch's tenure at MOCA. In 2012 Deitch fired MOCA's longtime chief curator Paul Schimmel, leading to the resignation of four MOCA board members – artists John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Catherine Opie – in protest. Deitch lived in an 8,000-square-foot house in

Los Feliz, Los Angeles Los Feliz (, ; Spanish for "The Feliz amily, ) is a hillside neighborhood in the greater Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, abutting Hollywood and encompassing part of the Santa Monica Mountains. The neighborhood is named after the Fel ...

formerly owned by

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...

Return to art dealing

In 2015, Deitch 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. Deitch now runs the two spaces under Jeffrey Deitch Inc. Since reopening the gallery, Jeffrey Deitch has organized exhibitions by

Tom Sachs Tom Sachs (born July 26, 1966) is an American contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City. Life and early career Sachs was born in New York City on July 26, 1966. He grew up in Westport, Connecticut, attending high school at Gree ...

, Eddie Peake, Walter Robinson,

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei (, ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly ...

, Kenny Scharf, and Austin Lee, among others. In 2018, he opened a new space in Hollywood, designed by

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considere ...

, specifically to mount what he described as "museum-level" exhibitions. The gallery inaugurated with a solo exhibition of

, followed by

Urs Fischer Urs Fischer (born 2 May 1973) is a Swiss-born contemporary visual artist living in New York City. Fischer’s practice includes sculpture, installation and photography. Education and early career Born to two doctors as the second of two children ...

, and

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

. In 2019 Deitch edited ''Unrealism'', a publication on new figurative painting featuring the most groundbreaking contemporary artists and their important predecessors. In 2020, Deitch conceived the creation of the Gallery Association Los Angeles (GALA for short), to "generate excitement about the L.A. gallery scene" and shared his idea with a group of gallerists in Los Angeles. 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.

References

External links

* Maxwell Williams
"Inside and Out: Jeffrey Deitch's Life in the Art World"
''KCET Artbound'', 2019. * Deborah Vankin

''Los Angeles Times'', September 19, 2018. * Anna Louie Sussman
"How Jeffrey Deitch, Citibank, and Christo Created the Art Market as We Know It"
'' Artsy'', July 30, 2017 * Donatien Grau
"Jeffrey Deitch"
'' Flash Art International'', October 3, 2014. * Carl Swanson
"Jeffrey Deitch Curates Jeffrey Deitch: The Return of the Art World's Most Essential Zelig"
''

'', January 12, 2014. * Calvin Tompkins
"A Fool For Art. Jeffrey Deitch and the exuberance of the art market"
''The New Yorker'', November 5, 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Deitch, Jeffrey 1952 births American art dealers Art in Greater Los Angeles Directors of museums in the United States Harvard Business School alumni Living people Wesleyan University alumni People from Los Feliz, Los Angeles