Jeffrey Deitch (pronounced DIE-tch; born July 9, 1952) is an American art dealer and curator. He is best known for his gallery Deitch Projects (1996–2010) and curating groundbreaking exhibitions such as Lives (1975) and Post Human (1992), the latter of which has been credited with introducing the concept of "posthumanism" to popular culture. In 2010, ArtReview named him as the twelfth most influential person in the international art world.
Deitch has been closely associated with artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jeff Koons. From 2010 to 2013, he served as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). He currently owns and directs Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, an art gallery with locations in New York and Los Angeles.
Early life and education
Deitch was born on July 9, 1952, and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where his father ran a heating oil and coal company and his mother was an economist. He attended public high school in West Hartford, Connecticut, from 1967 to 1970. He was an exchange student in Paris in 1968, and in Japan in 1969. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1974 and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978.
Career
Deitch opened his first gallery as a college student in 1972 at the Curtis Inn, a rented hotel parlor in Lenox, Massachusetts, and sold out the first week. Fascinated by the work of Andy Warhol and other contemporary artists, he later moved to New York and worked as a receptionist at John Weber Gallery in SoHo. From 1979 to 1988, Deitch helped develop and co-manage the art advisory and art finance department at Citibank. In this capacity, he lent money to major art collectors and facilitated loans to small galleries like Gracie Mansion for its 1984 renovation. Having become a regular at Warhol’s Factory, Deitch also introduced Warhol to a number of wealthy clients to draw their portraits. In 2022, he appeared in the documentary series The Andy Warhol Diaries to discuss their friendship.
Deitch was also a friend of and art dealer for Jean-Michel Basquiat. He was the first dealer to buy a work by the artist and the first person to write about his work in print. He later delivered the eulogy at Basquiat's funeral and served on the artwork authentication committee for the artist's estate.
From 1988 to 1996, Deitch was a successful private dealer and art adviser to a number of collectors, including Jose Mugrabi. As advisor to Goldman Sachs for the public art in its 200 West Street New York headquarters in 2006, Deitch helped to realize Julie Mehretu's 80-foot-long work "Mural", described by one critic as "one of the largest and most successful public art works in recent times".
In 1989, he bid US$10.5 million and paid $11.55 million for Jackson Pollock's silvery No. 8, 1950, then a record at auction for a work by the artist and the second-highest price at auction for a work by any contemporary artist. In 2006, he bought Bridget Riley's Untitled (Diagonal Curve) (1966), at Sotheby's for $2.1 million, nearly three times its $730,000 high estimate and also a record for the artist.
Over his career, Deitch has crafted for himself a unique role that merges curatorial profile with the business side of art.
Curatorial projects
Since 1975, Deitch has curated exhibitions internationally. Among his most celebrated projects are Lives (1975), Born in Boston (1979), New Portrait (1984) at Moma PS1, and Form Follows Fiction (2001) at Castello di Rivoli, Turin.
Between 1988 and 2008, Deitch curated numerous shows at Deste Foundation, Athens, including:
Cultural Geometry (1988) Psychological Abstraction (1989) Artificial Nature (1990) Post Human (1992) Everything that’s Interesting is New (1996) Fractured Figure (2007-2008)
In addition to Deste, Post Human was presented at five venues, including the Castello di Rivoli (Turin), Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), and The Israel Museum (Jerusalem). Philosopher Rosi Braidotti and others credit the show with introducing the term "posthuman" into the popular consciousness.
In 1995, he wrote the strategic plan for the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. His other curatorial projects have included the Venice Biennale's Aperto (1993), City as Studio (K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, 2023), and Confluence (Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai, 2023), collaborating with poet Ranjit Hoskote on the latter.
Deitch is known as an advocate for street art and has headed several influential public art projects with street artists. He initiated Wynwood Walls with Tony Goldman in Miami in 2009 and Coney Art Walls on Coney Island in New York in 2015.