Christopher Knight, the LA Times art critic, expresses a little contempt for the choice of Jeffrey Deitch as LA MoCA’s new director:
There is nothing wrong with a lively and robust art market, but Deitch’s commercial commitments are problematic for his new job. The problem is that the market represents a very narrow slice of a vast art-pie. Art commerce gets out-sized press because the public, although generally unfamiliar with and incurious about art, is familiar with and curious about money. In modern capitalism, art and popular culture intersect in the market.
Museums, on the other hand, are places where popular appeal should be irrelevant. Unpopular but potentially revolutionary art ideas need places to be seen, heard and debated. Depth, not breadth, is what matters. That’s what makes the American system of art museums conceptually unique, even if it doesn’t always work out that way in practice.
Critic’s Notebook: MoCA’s Complicated Choice of a New Director (Culture Monster)
