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 Un ...

''. born 1952) is an American

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationshi ...

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

New York Magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...

''. 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 C ...

, 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 university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

in 1974 and received an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

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 p ...

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 T ...

, 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 ...

. 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 Jose Mugrabi (born 1939) is a Syrian Israeli businessman and art collector. with a family net worth estimated at several billion. He is the leading collector of Andy Warhol, with 800 artworks. Biography Yosef "Jose" Mugrabi was born to a Syrian ...

. In 1989, he bid

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

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 hor ...

'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, th ...

, and ''Form Follows Fiction'' (2001) at

Castello di Rivoli The Castle of Rivoli is a former Residence of the Royal House of Savoy in Rivoli ( Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy). It is currently home to the Castello di Rivoli – Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, the museum of contemporary art of Turin. In 19 ...

, 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 new w ...

, 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 ''Flash Art'' is a contemporary art magazine, and an Italian and international publishing house. Originally published bilingually, both in Italian and in English, since 1978 is published in two separate editions, Flash Art Italia (Italian) and Fl ...

'' 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 Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al ...

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 7t ...

'' for ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

.'' His writings have appeared on numerous international magazines: ''Art in America'', ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

,'' ''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 develop ...

section of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. His first shows included works by

Vanessa Beecroft Vanessa Beecroft (born April 25, 1969) is an Italian-born American contemporary performance artist; she also works with photography, video art, sculpture, and painting. Many of her works have made use of professional models, sometimes in large nu ...

, 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 Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

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 Kehinde Wiley (born February 28, 1977)"Kehinde Wiley"
''Artnet''. Retrieved October 13, 2010. i ...

and

Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium ...

, 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 Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish su ...

(Deitch threw Koons' 50th birthday party). In 2006, he bought

Bridget Riley Bridget Louise Riley (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France. Early life and education Riley was born on 24 April 1931 in West Norwood, No ...

's ''Untitled (Diagonal Curve)'' (1966), at

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

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 The is a contemporary art museum founded by the real estate developer Minoru Mori (1934–2012) in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in the Roppongi Hills complex both of which he built in Tokyo, Japan. The exterior architect of the museum's gall ...

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 ''Art in the Streets'' was an exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles from April 17 to August 8, 2011. Curated by its then-director Jeffrey Deitch and associate curators Aaron Rose and Roger Gastman, it surveyed the developme ...

'' (2011), the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art. Additionally, Deitch conceived MOCAtv, the first original

YouTube channel YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most v ...

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 John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter, ...

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating severa ...

, and

Catherine Opie Catherine Sue Opie (born 1961) is an American fine-art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles, as a professor of photography at University of California at Los Angeles. Opie studies the connections between mainstream and i ...

– 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 Feli ...

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 Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York (SI) is an independent non-profit contemporary art organization founded in 1986. SI is located at 38 St Marks Pl, the corner of Second Avenue and St Marks Place in the East Village neighborhood of Manhatt ...

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 Green ...

Eddie Peake Eddie Peake (born 1981) is a British artist. His work includes performance, video, photography, painting, sculpture and installation. His art focuses on "implicit drama within relationships between people", and "how things like desire, sexual ...

, 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 c ...

Kenny Scharf Kenny Scharf (born November 23, 1958) is an American painter known for his participation in New York City's interdisciplinary East Village art scene during the 1980s, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Scharf's do-it-yourself pract ...

, and

Austin Lee Austin Lee (born 1983) is an American artist based in New York. Lee's airbrush paintings often combine digital technologies with traditional media. He also works in sculpture and video. Early life and education Lee was born in Las Vegas, Nevada ...

, 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 considered ...

, 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 Artsy, formally known as Art.sy Inc is a New York City based online art brokerage. Its main business is developing and hosting website for numerous galleries as well as selling art for them. It utilizes a search engine and database to draw conn ...

'', 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