Jeffrey Deitch Quotes

Part of my agenda has been to support art that engages life with people.

Many of the museum directors who make an impact personally curate exhibitions.

Overall, I think any opportunity to expose people to art on a mass level – to have some kid in Oklahoma say to his mother, “I want to be an artist” – is a good thing.

When you go out skating with your friends, you need one friend who knows how to take a good picture. Without the picture, there is no proof that you pulled the trick.

Celebrity has become, for better or worse, an art form. An artist can use themselves as a medium to become a celebrity as a walking work of art.

There is a constant ebb and flow in art historical reputations. The reputation of even the greatest figures like Picasso are in flux.

Art dealing is when you’re doing it as a business.

I didn’t know how to run a business. I was a terrible gallerist, the worst in history, possibly.

Sometimes you do a sound installation, and the first day or two it is very exciting. Then you are hearing this every day for a month, and it becomes like a torture.

Overall, I think any opportunity to expose people to art on a mass level – to have some kid in Oklahoma say to his mother, ‘I want to be an artist’ – is a good thing.

Effective fund-raising is based on relationships.

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.

Art, film, fashion, music are all going on and interacting simultaneously. And L.A. is very receptive to that fusion.

We use the term pop in the art world, as in Pop Art, but we forget that its root is popular – popular culture.

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.

When skateboarding and punk merged, it really became a large teen subculture.

From 1940 to the present, the art world – and particularly Los Angeles – has undergone a transformation not unlike the Italian Renaissance.

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.

We’re in a post-conceptual era where it’s really the artist’s idea and vision that are prized rather than the ability to master the crafts that support the work. Today, our understanding of an artist is closer to a philosopher than to a craftsman.

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.

I was a fan of Andy’s since I was a small kid. I recall seeing an ad of famous people on an airplane together. It was caricature drawing. There was Muhammad Ali, there was Miles Davis, and there was Andy Warhol. I had a fascination with him since I was little.

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.

Graffiti doesn’t exist unless someone got a photo, because it’s gone immediately.

Andy Warhol defined Pop Art.

To be in Brazil and see the work of Os GГЄmeos or to be in England and see what Banksy is doing is pretty fascinating to me.

One of the interesting things about skateboarding and graffiti is that skateboarding exists in the documentation of an act.

In the 1970s when I started in the art world, no self-respecting artist would have stood in line to try to get on a television show. It never would have happened.

Elizabeth Taylor is one of the great cultural icons. She is a part of our history and should be celebrated.… This presentation is very special for the community, there are so many people who want to understand this side of Elizabeth Taylor.

I believe that an art exhibition can be engaging, fun and deeply intellectually satisfying and serious. These are not contradictory concepts in art.