Jeffrey Deitch proves he’s eccentric as he looks. In this video the new MoCA director offers a tour of his new pad, which as of October still had yet to be furnished. Presumably that’s changed — you can’t woo donors without hosting a few schwank parties — but his priorities are clearly not his living quarters.
Anyway, house aside, he’s busy spouting his usual crazy:
The contemporary museum is potentially the most interesting platform in culture today. Art is a platform that now includes all media, so film, fashion, literature, street culture, that is all a central part of art right now.
Based on Deitch’s description of personalities so powerful they too are “almost an art form” earlier in the segment, it’s pretty clear Deitch isn’t describing multidisciplinary practice, but rather that fine art encompasses *all* creative fields. This is nothing new — he’s been reciting this mantra for years — but it’s scary to watch now that he’s not just some weird New York dealer, but the head of the most important contemporary art institution in the country — MoCA. Not to state the obvious, but the language of film and literature is different than that of fine art, and to conflate the two is to do a great disservice to all discipline’s involved. Blockbuster movies are made for the cineplex — they don’t require the art aura of a museum to be seen the way they were intended. Neither does fashion, literature, street art or any other cultural field in which the maker did not intend a museum or gallery to showcase and/or distribute the work.
Hat tip: Tricia Keightley
