Jeffrey Deitch (born 1952) is an American art dealer and curator who was from 2010 until his resignation in 2013 director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).
Skateboarding, like graffiti, will never be tamed. No matter how much they monetize it, no matter how big it gets, no matter how many companies are putting millions and millions of dollars into marketing it, it's always going to be some Mexican kid on a corner in Echo Park that changes the rules of the game.
Dennis Hopper is one of the great American lives.
Many of the museum directors who make an impact personally curate exhibitions.
Every day you run into artists on the streets in SoHo or other creative people you want to do something with. There's nothing to match that chance encounter.
What I hope is I'll eventually be seen as an actual individual, not as some abstraction - an art dealer running a museum.
When skateboarding and punk merged, it really became a large teen subculture.
Ramp skating has become the most popular televised form of skating because they can constrain it. They can judge it based on what's happening within this box of a ramp.
Art dealing is when you're doing it as a business.
From 1940 to the present, the art world and particularly Los Angeles, has undergone a transformation not unlike the Italian Renaissance.
Street skating, which is what I grew up with, is completely free of rules. You can do anything. When I see a skater go by, I think, What is this person going to do here? It's the same with people who write, who make music, who draw, who make movies. Creative people tend to have all of those different avenues in them.
Effective fund-raising is based on relationships.
One of the biggest things happening in the art world is this idea of expansion. No one embodies this aspect of what art is becoming better than James Franco.
Disney is our contemporary landscape. The best art will reflect that and challenge you. Disney comforts you, whereas the best art shakes up your comfort level and perception.
I didn't know how to run a business. I was a terrible gallerist, the worst in history, possibly.
To be in Brazil and see the work of Os Gêmeos or to be in England and see what Banksy is doing is pretty fascinating to me.
Part of my agenda has been to support art that engages life with people.
One of the interesting things about skateboarding and graffiti is that skateboarding exists in the documentation of an act.
I want to use whatever connections to get a super-outstanding Basquiat in the White House. It could be one of mine. It could be something that a friend owns.
When I was looking at the Russian Constructivists, these agitprop artists actually painted on trains. It was a heavy influence. They were bringing art to the people, to the masses, and breaking it out of the clubbiness of the art world, which is a monolith.
After pop art, graffiti is probably the biggest art movement in recent history to have such an impact on culture.