Jeffrey Deitch plans his next move

Following his exit as director of Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art, Jeffrey Deitch is planning his next move - a bid to create a hybrid between a museum mounting exhibitions geared to a general audience , and a galley that doesn't have to deal with the complex institutional issues that come with running a non-profit museum. The idea going forward he said is to continue doing big, museum-scale shows but without the institutional constraints.

Deitch is talking to potential collaborators who would help fund his venture, among them AEG, the LA-based entertainment company that has an arts and exhibitions division. He is also looking for a venue in New York for his new venture.
Image: Jeffrey Deitch

Jeffrey Deitch steps down from MOCA directorship

Jeffrey Deitch has finally announced he will be stepping down after three years as director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The official news release says he will be stay on for an unspecified time to ensure a smooth transition and the successful completion of MOCA's $100 million dollar endowment campaign, expected to close this fall. Now attention turns to the search for his successor.
Image: Jeffrey Deitch, outgoing director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art 

Jeffrey Deitch predicts the future of LA museum audiences

As his so-called celebrity-driven, populist programme at MOCA continues to divide the LA artworld Jeffrey Deitch has come out on the front foot saying he has seen the future of museum audiences and they will look a lot different from the old guard at MOCA. "They're not people who make a living as artists, art critics or professional collectors, which is the traditional MOCA audience. These are people who hear about a great new film they want to go to. They hear there's a terrific fashion store that's very cool - they want to go there. They don't differentiate between these cultural forms." Read more...
Image: Jeffrey Deitch and Naomi Campbell

Former MOCA chief executive urges Eli Broad to remove Jeffrey Deitch

In an email sent to Eli Broad and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Charles Young, the former chief executive of the Museum of Contemporary Art, has called for the removal of museum director Jeffrey Deitch.

"I hope that the four-alarm fire now enveloping MOCA has at least given you pause for thought about his appointment and your continued attempts to try to save him for a job which many (including myself) believe he is unqualified," Young wrote to Broad. "The resignation of dedicated, long term trustees, and especially four highly respected artists of international acclaim, should bother you, David [Johnson], Maria [Bell] and the other continuing members of the board. The question is 'What now is to be done?'"

"I will do anything I can to try to right the MOCA ship, but nothing will work, in my mind, without a new Captain/Director," Young concluded. Read more...
Image: Charles Young, former chief executive of MOMA and former UCLA chancellor

Roberta Smith's take on the MOCA meltdown

In her NYT article A Los Angeles Museum on Life-Support, Roberta Smith says Jeffrey Deitch needs to stop organising exhibitions and learn to be a museum director, Trustees need to step up and give more more money to counterbalance Eli Broad's influence and views, and artists need to reassert themselves in the life of the museum. Read more...
Image: MOCA's Art in the Streets exhibition

Jeffrey Deitch reponds to his critics

Jeffrey Deitch has defended his exhibition record at MOCA and dismissed suggestions by some board members, including in an open letter published in the New York Times, that the museum has lost its artistic bearings under his directorship and is increasingly under the control of billionaire collector and philanthropist Eli Broad. Read more...
Image: Jeffrey Deitch, director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art

The MOCA meltdown as "an apt metaphor for our crisis-plagued times"

In an ARTINFO article, Ben Davis traces the troubled history of MOCA from the days of 2008 when its financial problems first came into the open and Eli Broad stepped in to save the museum. Now he says the rescue appears to be an example of pursing a solution that has nothing to do with the real problem, and is more of a pet ideological problem of one man, Eli Broad. Davis says MOCA had a finances problem, not a curatorial problem and that tackling the wrong problem in the wrong way has hurt MOCA 's chances of setting itself right in the long run. Read more...
Image: Eli Broad and Jeffrey Deitch