Art Market Monitor

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Schnabel: Hopper No Dilettante

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Julian Schnabel defends his friend Dennis Hopper from accusations that the actor, photographer and art collector was a dilettante, in Jori Finkel’s excellent story in the Los Angeles Times:

“What is a dilettante anyway?” he continued. “How hard is it to be an actor and wait for directors to get a job? Are you a dilettante because you do what you want, or a professional because you’re getting paid?”

He went on to describe Hopper as a conceptual artist with a painter’s eye, who saw paintings in everyday life. He glanced at a wall of new photographs: color-drenched digital images printed on aluminum, “taken right from Dennis’ camera” and printed for the show. These shots, like a close-up of a building wall painted a brilliant red, verge on painterly abstraction.Continue Reading

The Advantages of Being Overlooked

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Jori Finkel asks a simple question: how is Jeffrey Deitch putting the Dennis Hopper show together so quickly? Part of the answer lies in the fact that Hopper wasn’t taken seriously as an artist for most of his career:

It helps, Deitch noted, that many of Hopper’s works–including his famous 1961 “Double Standard” image (pictured)–are photographs done in editions, so there are multiple examples in existence.

It also helps, one could add, that Hopper was never an art-market darling whose work was snapped up by all the big collectors and museums. MOCA, for instance, does not have a single example of his work in its permanent collection.

How Jeffrey Deitch is Bringing ‘Dennis Hopper Double Standard’ to a Museum Near You So Quickly (Culture Monster)

LA MoCA's 4 New Board Members

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LA’s MoCA announced four new board members late last week. The LA Times named them:

On Wednesday, the museum said its board has elected four new members.  The new trustees are Lauren King, a philanthropist and residential designer; Timothy J. Leiweke, the president and chief executive of the sports and entertainment conglomerate AEG; Catherine Opie, the provocative photographer and visual artist; and Donald Tang, the founder and chief executive of CITIC Securities International Partners.

MoCA Adds Four New Members to Its Board of Trustees (Culture Monster)

Art is Deitch's Asset

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It’s a measure of the suspicion toward the art market that is held by so many in the art world that Jeffrey Deitch’s announcement that he plans to sell some of his gallery holdings to meet financial commitments from his business as a dealer is being treated as an admission that he plans to continue art dealing after taking his post as LA’s MoCA.

The LA Times’s Mike Boehm ran a story late last week that included Deitch’s explanation of why and how he would sell works.

Now, Deitch says he expects that when he starts at MOCA he will still have “a few hundred works” on his hands that currently belong to Deitch Projects and that he expects to fold them into his personal collection. He said he planned to go on selling some of those — under protocols previously worked out with MOCA’s board that apply when he sells pieces from his personal art holdings.Continue Reading

Art vs. Commerce

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Get used to this. With Jeffrey Deitch’s appointment to head MoCA there will be endless whinging from local critics every time there’s a reminder that it takes money to support an art museum. Today’s example comes from Christopher Knight. He’s upset that MoCA is holding a fundraiser with the help of Blum + Poe Gallery

The commercial entanglement makes one blanch, especially given the controversial appointment in January of New York art dealer Jeffrey Deitch as MOCA’s new director. Appearances matter. In this case, there is no way to determine whether the relationship between the gallery and the museum is philanthropic or business-driven. That’s not the gallery’s problem, but it is the museum’s. MOCA is stumbling into troublesome territory. […] Fundraising at a gallery is a mistake.

The lugubrious tone would be more impressive were it backed by some substantive reason for the objection. Instead, the entire argument comes from the prima facie assertion that any connection between a museum and commercial establishment needs must be corrupting.

MoCA Shouldn’t Be Fundraising at a Gallery (Culture Monster)

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