Hi, I'm Jesse Dylan and this
is my cohost Priscilla Cohen.
And this is Jesse's Office.
Today we're talking to renowned art
dealer and curator, Jeffrey Deitch.
We're asking what is art? We also
talk about working with artists like
Andy Warhol, Basquiat,
Keith Haring and Kaws and a changing of
the guard of the art world. But first,
please subscribe to our YouTube channel
to watch this and more episodes or
subscribed to Jesse's Office,
wherever you stream your podcasts.
Feel free to leave comments and reviews.
We try to respond whenever we can.
[inaudible] hi,
It's a different situation
happening. Right? Yeah. Well, yes.
That you aren't telling us is this
good. I love the pattern of the bricks.
Ah, well you can look and stare
at the bricks. You know, um,
Claire was saying you might want to shoot
some stuff from the other thing again.
Of course we can do that.
Okay. You know what I'm saying?
But you look at it and decide. See you,
see you astonished me with this
first question. What is art?
Which is like the ultimate question.
Right. What, what do you think?
What is art? Have you thought about
it more? Yes, I have. What do you,
what do you think it is? Well,
the wonderful thing about
art is that artists can
redefine art in what they do. Right.
So what people assumed art was last year
can be different in the coming year.
Right.
And so it's one of the few fields
where the participants and the viewers
continually redefine it.
You know, when you look at,
I don't know have you looked at any of
those cave paintings from 25,000 years
ago? Extraordinary.
Somebody showed me. So I,
I had a fascinating conversation
with a beekeeper. Right.
Last week. Right.
He's married to the artist Kiki Smith,
whom I did an exhibition and he was
telling me about the first cave painting,
supposedly the first cave
painting. Right. Which is,
represents a bee shaman.
And I looked this up on the
Internet. I couldn't believe it.
It could have been done today. Right.
And says a lot about the human spirit,
human nature, where this cave painting,
which possibly is the earliest
cave painting ever found. Right.
If you blew that up and traced it
out on the wall, my gallery. Right.
People say that's great. Right.
You know, who is this young artist?
What makes it great? You
said it's great. Oh okay.
So there's, there's something
that I've learned about,
about the power of art and there,
it's a two dimensional
medium of painting, um,
so sculpture is different,
but there's something where an image
converges and there's often in the
strongest images,
there's a kind of symmetry and
this particular image has the symmetry.
It has the resonance of a
power of an actual person.
There's something that we talk about with
figurative art where the best artists
can somehow represent the power,
personality of an actual
person of themselves and
transfer that magic that you
get in speaking with a
charismatic person into an,
a representational image
on a wall or on a canvas. You know,
when you see that, you know, we know.
So you know, we don't
know who the artist was.
We don't even know what life
was like around that cave.
We have no idea why he painted the,
or she painted that picture. I mean,
do you ever think of, like in that case
of a, of a cave painting, you know,
do you ever wonder why it was
painted or how or what with,
what went on around it and how it relates
to your gallery or is your gallery
just, you know, paintings
and shadows on a wall?
Well,
it's very interesting to think of the
connection between artist and shaman.
Yeah. Okay. So this image from the cave,
it's referred to as the bee shaman and
something also very interesting there are
mushrooms in the hands.
So may have been a figure
who is on a kind of LSD trip.
Right. That's good to think about.
Thousands of years ago in terms
of the artists and the shaman,
a number of artists really
play that up in their persona.
Right. There,
in a lot of the best art
there is this mystical power,
something unexplained.
And what I love is when I see an artist
working on a painting and I follow it.
And then the last few brush strokes,
there's a magic that occurs.
How did they do that?
How did they animate this inanimate image?
You know, you work with
some of the greatest artists
of the time, you know, so,
so when you're looking
at those artists, I mean,
even though you've started with
them quite early at this point,
a lot of them are very fully formed.
So they know that the painting is going
to be good. You know, I'm forgetting.
Basquiat? Yeah, well Basquiat's a long
time ago, but more recently just, um,
I forget which artist it was who sold
a painting of. Well, Jeff Koons? Yeah.
Jeff Koons. That was. It's
like, you know, Jeff Koons, I,
I don't know Jeff Koons, but
when he goes to do a project,
he's pretty sure it's going
to be good. And, and, and uh,
you're going to be blown
away. Um, uh, I mean,
do you find that experience different
than outsider art where it's like the
artist maybe doesn't know it's good or
isn't as confident and, and you know,
what's the, what's the difference
between these two ideas?
Well, the difference
between outside or inside,
this is a fascinating subject in art.
And sometimes the outsider
artist is someone who just
didn't go through the Yale
university MFA program. Or Cal Arts.
They just followed a
different path. Right.
And didn't spend their 20s chatting up
art critics and dealers in New York city,
they, they're just in a
different place, but the
practice,
the experience that they put into it
has all the hallmarks of what a great
artist does,
but they're also outside artists
who may be in a different realm.
There are people who might have
developmental disabilities.
They have the ability to have
very powerful direct expressions.
So that's quite different. Uh.
You know, do you, um,
do you have, you know,
I forget the name of the artist who
did the like butterflies and you know,
sort did a. Damien Hirst? No, no
outsider artist. You know, who, who died,
nobody had ever seen any of his work.
And then there was all in these books.
You mean David, you mean,
wasn't his name David the,
the guy that lived on the grounds. Who
is the one that lived on a? Well, they,
they each have their own
stories. The point is,
is that a lot of them are making
art just for the sake of making art.
If you have,
you had the experience of being surprised
and seeing a body of work where you
just go, oh my God, I can't
believe all this stuff happened?
Oh, absolutely. Yes. So
there, there was a fantastic artist, uh,
who,
his name was Willie Cole and I,
he was someone who hung
around Fashion Moda,
this very influential art space in
the South Bronx in the early eighties.
And what he did is he
carved pieces of wood.
Right.
And into animal legs and
he put marbles in them.
And this was the time when we were
discovering the inventors of wild style
graffiti. Right. Lee Quinones, Crash,
but I was equally fascinated by this guy.
Turned out he supported himself
as a messenger for Western Union.
Right. And he just,
he didn't have the opportunities
to go to art school.
And somehow he found his way
to Fashion Moda. Right. Uh,
he unfortunately died young,
so the career didn't continue,
but I still have a work of
his that's so resonant. Right.
It's one of, he's one of the
best artists I ever encountered.
Is there's a thing with an outsider
artist and maybe you can't generalize,
where it's just an
obsession to create and,
and they're not really connecting to
the idea of being known, being famous,
getting money. It's more need to
express. Have, is there any. Well,
I, I think these needs, you're
talking about, the needs to express,
that's characteristic of the best artists
who are in the system, who earn money,
who are professional.
So I have met a few people who
enter this as a kind of business,
but
almost every top artist I
know the business and career,
career rewards, not
the primary motivation at all. You know,
they're there to make art. Also,
I know a number of top
artists who deliberately make
the business part difficult
by creating problems with their art
dealers, with collectors. You know,
there are others who behave
perfectly in the system.
They're also excellent artists. Depends
on the personality. Do they have to,
is there a kind of the cliche that
you have to be tortured to do art,
can you be a happy person? Do you,
any of your patrons? Ar, ar, artists
are just, it, it's, it's,
there's so many personalities that
go into being a successful artist,
musician, writer. And so I,
I'm friendly with great artists who
are so well rounded as people./ Right.
That they're, they're family people.
They are perfect at
raising children, you know,
with taking care of their
partners, their parents, you know,
always polite and,
and they're also radical
artists. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
We all know artists who
are incomplete as people.
Yeah. Who, you know,
are really holy terrors.
So it doesn't, it's not something,
contrary to the popular myth
that the best artists are crazy.
Yeah. I too know some great
artists who are crazy. Yeah.
But I know just as many who are totally
sane and absolutely pleasurable,
you know, a pleasure to you know.
You um, when you see a, somebody, you
know, stumping around in their ba,
in their attic actually, and they
find a Caravaggio up there, you know,
what does that make you? Caravaggio
was a tortured artist, you know,
and obviously this was a very important
seminal painting that they found and you
know, they know that because
there were copies of it made,
but it just disappears, just hanging
around in this attic. Like, I mean,
where does your mind go when you,
when you see something like that?
Well, I,
I've just read that story on this
as well and it was fascinating.
Caravaggio was renowned
during his lifetime.
Shortly after he died, there was actually
a biography written about Caravaggio.
Right.
But then I wasn't aware of this until
I read that story that for hundreds of
years he's dropped out of the
mainstream art history. Yeah.
And so it seems implausible,
but I guess that's what happened. Yeah.
That even a masterwork of Caravaggio,
would sort of get lost that it wasn't
as valued as it was during his lifetime.
And certainly as it is now. You know,
you see, um, these happen, you know,
French Revolution, like 50 paintings
go missing out of the Louvre. You know,
one of them is, uh, is the
other Mona Lisa you know,
and then it shows back up and,
and it seems like there's very
little of this stuff out there,
this really great stuff is that,
and then you think about the modern era
and there's more of it, but you know,
a lot of times I wonder like, oh,
they make these things, you know,
I just was looking at your Future of
Sculpture and I'm looking at all these
materials that they're making with, I'm
not an artist, but I think I'm going,
well, geez, you know, how long can that
last? You know, can it be physically,
you know, is it impermanent
and gonna fall apart?
Some of those things looked like they
are. And how do you think about that?
Cause you're sort of guiding collectors
and you have to have your eye on
history. You know, how do you think
on? Okay, this is a fascinating topic.
So
one of the exhibitions that I curated
was called Post-Human and we presented it
in a wonderful space the Deichtorhallen
in Hamburg And they're very professional
and they engage the leading art
conservator in Hamburg to do,
unpack and do condition reports on every
work of artists that came in. Right.
His name is Christian Scheidemann.
He was a specialist on old,
old master painting.
And Christian became so fascinated by
the new materials that these artists were
using. For instance, the Matthew Barney
piece that was included in the show,
an important component of it
was made with tapioca. Right.
And Robert Gober contributed works that
were somehow solidified donuts with some
resin on them and. All
donuts have that. So,
so Christian got so interested in this,
he began working with the
artists, helping them,
and he eventually moved to New York city
and became the world's specialist on
these new materials,
and not so new that artists were
incorporating into their work.
And he years later conserved the
tapioca in the Matthew Barney sculpture.
So the point of this is that there is now
a very distinguished specialist in how
to preserve these unusual
contrary artists materials.
So if an artist like Robert Gober,
Matthew Barney is
important in art history,
there will be specialists,
conservators who will be there as well
to take care of these fragile works.
Now, you know,
do you have in your collection things
that have liquid in them and you're,
you're always worried about
them. I do. So for instance,
one of the most problematic works in
my collection in terms of preservation,
was a great work by Janine AntonI.
Seven busts of herself made out of
soap and seven made out of chocolate.
Right. So the soap bust,
she would take into the bathtub
with her and caress and you know,
just like a bar of soap. It's
for the, the image changes,
it's softens. And then the
chocolate busts, she would lick,
she would bite into, you know,
she would sculpt them by munching
on them and licking them.
Um, so, these are a great challenge to
deserve. Now, now. Where are they now?
What's
that conversation like when she first
shows it to you and like what do you,
you're like gonna like, well, wait a
minute. You know, I mean, what do you,
what are you thinking when
you're looking at that? Well,
it's such a powerful work because of her
own engagement with it. With her body.
Yeah. It's so sensual.
So at first you don't even
think of these issues of, hey,
what's going to happen to this? Yeah.
I began worrying about this
when another work in soap and,
and chocolate was. Now are you cornering
the market for soap and chocolate?
Yeah, wait, is there another
artist doing soap and chocolate?
She did some smaller additions.
This is sort of the real
thing with the 14 busts,
but there was another work,
similar materials that the greatest
collector of his day Charles Saatchi had.
And when
the art handlers went to
retrieve it from his warehouse,
was found that rats had gotten in and
had eaten quite a bit of the chocolate
cube. Right. So we began a process,
very extensive and eventually these
works were recast in more permanent
materials, were still chocolate,
but somehow a kind of chocolate where
the sugar was removed from the mix.
Uh,
but I realized this is something that
I was not equipped to take care of over
time.
And it's the one major piece from
my collection that I ever sold.
I sold it to the National Gallery of Art
in Washington where they are equipped
to take care of it and
willing to take this on.
When you see a thing like Banksy,
you know, at an auction and then,
you know, they hit the gavel and,
and uh. It disappears. You know,
the thing and then it literally,
you know. It shreds. What,
what goes through your mind with that,
you know, is that uh, uh, cause I mean,
what is that? It's sort of like a
play on value. Yeah, what is? Very,
very so very successful work
by Banksy. Right. Look, set,
set it up though so people
understand what it is. Okay,
so fascinating.
Maybe the most publicized talk
about work by any artist last year.
Right.
Was a Banksy painting that was the
last lot in a Sotheby's London auction.
And just as the work
was being hammered down,
somebody in the sales room,
he had a remote control switch and the
painting began descending through a
shredder and the bottom half
of it ends up in fringe.
Um, the top half remains and
people go crazy and standing up,
you know, complete chaos in the
sales room. Uh, and it hammered
down for high price. Yeah. Of course,
the irony is that it's worth much more
as a half shredded painting than it would
have been as the original painting.
But is that the intention,
was the intention to be shredded
is that Banksy's intention? Well,
Banksy shrouds everything
in mystery. Right. Okay.
The way I interpret this,
is the whole scenario was set up by
Banksy and that he orchestrated it.
So it would be the last slot in the sale,
so it would be hung in a prominent place
in the sales room rather than taken
around on an easel.
There may have been an insider
who was in on the project,
maybe not. Right. Sotheby's
claims no. Yeah. But
it's,
Banksy has been very clever at
understanding that particularly today,
art does not stop with the
physical object. Yeah. Right.
So the way the, the life of the object,
the way its history is communicated,
the way it extends out
through social media. That's
part of the art. I mean, is that a
sort of Damien Hirst kind of idea?
Does he begin that thought process?
I think you can go way
back to history. Look,
you can start with Gustave Courbet who
challenges the official salon by showing
his work outside of the salon
and who creates his own context,
who creates publicity.
But the intellectual structure,
I would go back to Marcel Duchamp who
asserted that the artwork is not completed
by the artist. The artwork is completed
by the viewer who experiences it.
So it's signing the, uh, the, uh,
you know, uh, what do you call it?
The building in, in New York, you
know, or, or, uh, you know, taking, uh,
taking a picture of the Mona Lisa and
postcard and then signing his name to it.
That's right.
You know. And so, well, that's an
example of the artist interacting
with the world. Right. Yeah.
Duchamp did it in a very new, fresh way,
but the meaning of the artwork and the
experience of the artwork is only fully
realized when the viewer engages
with it and they complete it.
So Banksy runs with this idea where the,
it's not just one viewer,
it's because of social media
and all that large coverage.
It's millions of people in this
experience who complete the artwork.
How. You know, how does,
how does Andy Warhol take
that to a new modern level?
Because you know, Andy Warhol
wasn't even about a painting.
He was about a whole life, you
know, like it was, it was, was he,
did he do something unusual there?
Well, Andy Warhol is along with Duchamp,
one of the most innovative
artists of the 20th century.
I've, I have a,
a fantasy project that one
point I hope to realize,
it's a book, an exhibition
entitled artist as art. Right.
And I'm so fascinated by
artists like Marcel Duchamp,
like Andy Warhol,
where their whole being is an
artistic statement When we get in,
I'm sorry, no, but I thinking,
we were talking about,
talking about social media and now we
have a crazy change in the world where
individuals think of themselves on
Instagram that everybody is how is.
Well Andy was so prescient. Right.
So in the future everybody will be
world famous for 15 minutes. Right.
Well he, we see it, do you see it that?
Do you remember the first time
you met him? Oh yes, definitely.
I mean was he already a
great artist at that point?
Well one of the reasons I even wanted
to be involved in art and wanted to move
to New York city, it was just somehow
to get involved with Andy Warhol. Right.
To do something with
him, to just experience.
So do you remember your first meeting
with him? So yes. Well it was just.
Must have been hard to get the
meeting. It was an observation. Okay.
So I was with a bunch of friends
in the hot artist bar of the time,
was called the Lower Manhattan
Ocean Club, was Mickey Ruskin,
who is most famous for Max's Kansas City,
was his latest venture.
And I was at a booth with a number
of young artists and John Wilcock,
who was one of the original
editors of Interview magazine.
He wasn't really involved with
Andy anymore at that time.
This was 1975 and I'm sitting in the booth
and then I see this apparition slowly
coming down the aisle.
And it was Andy Warhol,
and John Wilcock stands up in the booth.
You know, Andy. And
I'll never forget this.
Andy made this gesture with
his hands and with his mouth
without verbalizing anything. And it
really was, wow, this is an apparition.
This is like a ghost. Yeah.
And he didn't say, oh,
hi John. Nice to see you. It was
just this ghost-like gesture.
And then he floated by. Yeah. So that
was my first image of Andy Warhol.
So inplanted my mind. Do you remember
talking to him the first time? Yeah, yes.
So then I had this scheme, so I,
I attended the Harvard business school
and improbably for someone. Perfect,
perfect background for being an art
dealer. Comes, could, yes. Who, who,
who had spent two years in the
Soho art scene in the beginnings
of punk rock in New York city.
But I joked with my friends that, what
you're going to Harvard business school?
And I said, well, I'm going to Harvard
business school to study art criticism.
Right. And, and,
but it was an exaggeration, but in fact,
that experience informed my ability to
write about art in a way that was much
fresher and more interesting than it
would have been if I had gone to the
Institute of Fine Arts. Right.
So I cooked up this
concept to write my thesis,
at the Harvard business school, on
Andy Warhol as a business artist.
Right.
So that was my platform for
going to meet Andy Warhol. Right.
So I got an appointment
with the factory. It was,
I had to go through a
filter, I had to go through
Vincent Fremont and Fred
Hughes, Andy's managers,
and began doing my research.
And it was on one of my visits,
I was in Vincent's office,
that Andy who didn't have an
office himself, liked to use.
So Vince says, oh, would
you like to meet Andy?
And Andy just floats into the office
because he was lighter than air and just,
oh hi. And well, that was my first
conversation with Andy Warhol. And,
but did you eventually
get to a deeper? Well,
so then another scheme of mine
to get more involved with Andy,
is I organized an exhibition
of Andy Warhol's portraits,
basically celebrity portraits,
for the opening of a new club
in Hong Kong, the I Club,
and Fred Hughes, Andy's manager,
was very good at negotiating these deals.
And part of the deal was that the entire
Andy Warhol posse would get invited to
Hong Kong.
They filled the entire first-class
section of a Pan Am clipper. Right.
And. You were on the plane too?
No, I was already there. Right.
There's a wonderful photograph
of me greeting Andy as he
arrives at the Mandarin
Hotel in Hong Kong. Right. And. What
did he say to you as he was pulling up?
Well, so I,
I had numerous conversations
with Andy by then,
but I only heard him speaking in mono
syllables. Right. You know, famously
that was, wow, gee. I never really, I,
I thought that's all that Andy said. Yeah.
And then we have the whole entourage
around this big Chinese lazy Susan table
for dinner at the I Club. They had a
lot of energy even after this long trip.
And it was just me and the
owner of the I Club. Yeah.
And then Andy and all his friends and
we were just there in the middle of this
conversation and I was just
amazed to hear Andy talking now,
but not just talking. I, Andy
was one of the greatest raconteur
of his time. Sure. And so and so,
and I was in,
somehow after that I was just
admitted into the circle.
So it was facade, you're not
going to get through this facade,
I'm not gonna tell you a thing about me.
And then eventually you hung around
long enough that you got inside. Right.
I think that this was just his method of
dealing with all the hangers on of all
the people who wanted something from
him. Yeah. So at a public situation,
he would just respond in
mono syllables. Right.
So he didn't have to engage
in conversations with
hundreds of people a day.
What did you learn at the factory,
you know, what did you see? I mean,
did you see Lou read, you know all
these people. I learned so much, well,
by the time I was involved, this
was the early eighties. Right. Okay,
so the days of the real
factory are long gone.
Right. It was really Andy
Warhol enterprises by that time.
It was many ways, a
kind of pseudo business,
a business of portrait commissions and
corporate commissions and Interview
magazine. Yeah. And
he wasn't making films anymore. Right.
But I say it was like a mock business
cause it was really about art and it was,
if it was business, it was business
art. You know, did you, did you,
I knew him a little bit,
you know, just a little bit,
but did you find him to be, you know,
the roots of that power. You knew him?
I knew Andy Warhol a little bit. Yeah.
Yeah. Cause it's, you know, kind of, my
dad, you know, it's like a, you know,
sort of traveling in the same small
circle. Right. Um, uh. An apparition.
But to make art like that,
to live like that, you know,
there has to be vulnerability somewhere
and it. Oh Andy was very vulnerable. And
it's never shown to the public.
We think of him just as like,
you just whip these things up. But
did you see the vulnerability? Oh,
absolutely. So when we presented
the project in Hong Kong, we
had a number of social events around
it and we organized a very high profile
press event where all the
journalists covering culture,
art and
Hong Kong and, and
Southeast Asia came and started asking
him questions and it's going very well.
People are very respectful. And then
toward the end of the press conference,
some young man asks a
question about Edie Sedgwick?
Now just at that time,
this is when the book by Jean Stein
about Edie Sedgwick has come out and it's
big cultural moment and the book unfairly
paints Andy as someone who is maybe
partially responsible for Edie
Sedgwick's decline and eventual death.
And so this young man asks a question,
very inappropriate of, well, what
do you think about the book? And uh,
do you feel that you're somewhat
responsible for Edie Sedgwick's death?
And Andy, who we know,
had the most pale complexion
ever experienced. And when,
all remaining color drains out of
his skin and he is just in shock,
and I can see the horror
going through his face,
that here on the other side of the world,
he couldn't escape that bad
rap about Edie Sedgwick.
And I observed Andy and
he was such a kind person,
such a generous person.
And to blame somebody's own
personal problems on Andy Warhol.
That's so unfair. Did
you, um, did you, uh,
do you remember meeting Jean-Michel
Basquiat? Bouska Oh, well, very well.
I was good friends with Jean-Michel,
I. But did you, you know,
did you meet him when he
was just doing the cards?
So was it pre him becoming a phenomenon
or was he already a known artist. Well,
he was a phenomenon from the age of 17,
18 years old. Right. Okay. So
before meeting John-Michel himself,
I lived downtown New
York and like everyone,
I was so intrigued by this
conceptual Haiku of SAMO
graffiti. It's really concrete
poetry. It was nothing like it. Right.
And so were all of us asking who's SAMO?
I didn't realize then the
pronunciation was correctly,
was co correct pronunciation was
same-o, or like same old. Right.
We mistakenly thought it
was sam-o but it wasn't. And
he was, even though he
was very much around,
people didn't quite know who did it,
didn't connect him with a person. Right.
It was
actually John-Michel and one or two
other friends of his from City-As-School.
So my first actual encounter
with John Michel, the person,
was when I went to a performance
of his noise band Gray. Right.
And friend of mine points him out.
He was playing a kind of noise
box. Right. And said that's SAMO.
Yeah. Really, that's him.
Very charismatic person,
very, very good looking. Very
stylish. But did you understand the,
the magnitude of his contribution
at that earliest stage?
People really knew that he was
something. Right. Very early on and,
and, and then
I turned out to be the first person
to actually write about John- Michel
Basquiat as the artist
rather than SAMO. Right.
There was a story in the
Village Voice about SAMO.
The Times Square Show, the summer of 1980,
my favorite room in the Time Square Show,
where hundred plus young artists got
together to create their own show in an
abandoned massage parlor.
Right. In Times Square.
My favorite room was the
fashion room. Right. Where
John-Michel had painted the walls and
then a number of friends of his had their
own fashion works and
other things in the room.
And I wrote a review of the times
square show for art in America.
Right.
And in it was the first mention
of Jean-Michel as an artist.
Now you, you watched him
over the years, you know,
and you watched him develop into a
giant artist. You know, what was that?
Because that's really, you're there
at the beginning stage, but you know,
what's it like to see that all? Well,
but what I emphasize is that
even before he made his,
now iconic paintings,
people on the scene knew this was the guy.
This was a giant talent, even
starting with the SAMO graffiti.
And then that, that work,
that wall work that he did that I
described as a knockout combination of de
Kooning and subway spray paint,
that was for me the strongest work in
the whole Times Square Show. So people,
people knew and, and, and it was so,
it was not a surprise to see him mature
and do these masterful paintings,
cause the talent was evident
from the beginning and,
and he had earned already the
respect of the whole downtown scene.
Did you see that with
Keith Haring as well?
Like was it the similar sort of
situation that everybody just knew?
So the first I met Keith Haring when
I went to a party at Tony Shafrazi's
apartment on Lexington Avenue.
This was before Tony Shafrazi had his
gallery and he had hired Keith Haring as
his bartender, but he, he
had no idea who Keith was,
that Keith was going to become
his greatest star artist. Right.
And Keith at that time,
he was offering his artist friends
exhibitions on his eyeglass frames.
Right.
And I see Keith behind the bar with
these painted eyeglasses and I started
talking to him, wow, tell me
about, whose, that was amazing.
And he explained what he was doing,
that he was offering shows
and that was my beginning,
the beginning of my
friendship with Keith Haring.
It started with that conversation
and so Keith was always,
from the very beginning,
he was still a student at the
School of Visual Arts then.
He was always a charismatic presence and
other artists understood that he was an
artistic leader. They gathered
around him. So you as a, as,
as this community that you were a
part of for a long time, you know,
to now do you see it as a continuum and
that we have Keith Haring's now and we
have Basquiat now and we have, we
have are, are you, is your job,
you're the steward of this to, like
how do you see your role? Okay,
well see I see art as an
ongoing discourse. Right.
Where artists like Keith Haring
they're somehow in conversation still.
Picasso, and artists before
them. Keith was very interested,
a very influenced by Alechinsky and saw
an exhibition of his at the Carnegie
when he was a student,
still living in Pennsylvania and artists,
so they're in conversation with artists
from the past with artists around them
in the present and someone
like Keith is also sending out,
uh, inspiration for the
future. Right. So so, I,
I love being part of this
discourse. Right. Cause again,
artists don't just make an object, they're
in this network of influences
from the past and the present.
So. And in terms of my role,
well in the beginning I just wanted to
participate and it didn't matter whether
I was going to write
about it, do business,
deal in the art, curate
, actually make art,
which I did at one point. I
just wanted to participate.
And I'm very grateful that
I'm still participating.
And what I try to do now,
is I have a little seniority
is to try to use my experience,
try to,
to articulate trends and patterns.
So. What do you see
now? Like when you see,
we talked about social media a little
bit. I do want to get back to that.
Are the tools changing? Yeah.
Yes. Or something like Instagram.
We talked a little bit about it
the last time we saw you. Yes. Yes.
So this is a very interesting period in
visual arts and just as you have a whole
new structure with filmmaking,
with the streamers and people
watching film on their phones.
So I've been following how the visual
arts is changing in response to this new
situation. Well first just to
back up a little bit. Okay.
So I mentioned I, like a lot,
like a lot of people my
age in New York city,
that I was enthralled by
what was happening with punk
rock and new wave rock and
no wave rock. And I followed it.
I go to CBGBs almost every
night and the other clubs,
eventually Mudd Club and Area. So
I was very immersed in all this
and I was also, I was a
teenager, big rock and roll fan.
And I've always wondered what's wrong?
Why is it that the appreciation,
the audience for visual art is so narrow
compared with the audience from music?
And why couldn't visual art appeal to
millions of young people and connect with
them the way music did, what was
wrong, what wasn't happening? Now
it's fascinating to see how visual art is
being able to communicate
in such a broader way now.
And so the current generation is probably
the most visually fluent generation in
history where people
are so aware of images,
they know images and they
create their own images.
And so how is this
affecting visual art? Well,
in one way,
it's Instagram and other ways of
distributing images is now trumping
art form reviews and New
York Times art critics. Yeah.
So artists and the art audience get so
much of their information through social
media. And
I'm so interested in how this elaborate
endorsement system that used to control
the channeling of art history.
So distinguished critics,
people like Clement Greenberg
in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.
Lucy Lippard, 60s, 70s, how
this elaborate endorsement
system that the artists,
dealers, the museums,
collectors, all bought into. How
it's being usurped by?
let's say
somebody like Pharell
tweeting an interest in an artist or
putting something on his Instagram or you
know, that,
that somebody with a million
plus Instagram followers
can be more influential
now than the distinguished
critic of the New York Times.
And so this, this is all
just beginning. Right.
And, but I'm, I'm fascinated to see it
unfold. But without judgment, right?
I mean, in the end, in the end, is there
judgment here on your part? Because,
is it crowdsourcing.
Let's just take some of our
favorite musicians of the 1960s.
Okay. Was their influence there because
somebody in an influential newspaper
wrote a good review? Right.
No, I think it was the
audience that spoke,
it was the audience who attended the
concerts. Who bought the records. Right.
You know, um, the way that we get
music has changed. And, uh, you know,
you think about Miles Davis, you know,
Miles Davis had Jazz
fans and it had people,
a whole machinery that moved around
Miles Davis that doesn't really exist
anymore for Jazz. Um,
is this change that you're talking about?
Is it more democratizing? Does it, does
it have a contribution to make? Does it,
does it change the way we view art?
Well, so th th, it's so fascinating
to think about this cause you,
there's the whole issue of well
what are the standards? Yeah.
What about quality? Yeah. So
there's this phenomenon that a lot of
people in the art world are talking about
with an artist who I admire, who I
consider a friend Kaws, K-A-W-S, so
Kaws comes from a different trajectory
than most of the established artists.
Uh,
starts working on the street doing these
fascinating things of replacing the ads
and bus shelters with his interventions,
then putting them back and having
a shop in Tokyo with his toys.
So he builds his following through
a constituency of people who follow
streetwear, sneaker heads. Right.
Skate subculture. Uh,
he wasn't for years, he wasn't let
in to the artist establishment.
So this year the art world is astonished
to see out of nowhere Kaws selling for
three and a half million dollars at
an auction and then more recently $15
million at auction and wow, who is this?
And then people realize that Kaws who
they haven't been paying attention to is
conceivably the most popular
artist out there today. Right. And,
and so this constituency of Pharell,
who I mentioned and others
who are in this mix of music,
streetwear, skate culture. Right. They
have so much power, but you know, so,
so and so the,
the art world is caught off guard.
How did this happen? Yeah. Uh,
people looking and saying,
wow, this work is pretty good.
And,
and so right now he's in a transition
where actually museum shows are happening.
He's going to have a retrospective
at the Brooklyn Museum.
So the, you know, the,
that just like the greatest musicians,
they're simultaneously super popular but
also esteemed for the quality of their
work.
It's interesting cause you said, well,
why, you know, kids will listen to music.
Why aren't they, why aren't
they going out to watch art?
Now you have a situation where these
influencers are saying, look at this.
So in a way, what may be toppling
the art world as we know it,
the old way of doing it is still
getting lots of people to look and pay
attention to maybe come into this world.
So maybe there's some great thing about
that because more people are saying,
what do I see? How do I see the world?
You know, it's interesting that,
how these influencers, and by the
way are, who else is out there?
So it's kind of self organizing. So in
fact maybe we do want to see things.
It's just what and what happens
when you put them into a museum.
Does that become that thing again,
that barrier. You know, we had done,
once talkded to Baldessari about
that idea of the conceptual art.
You know very well about
Baldessarri. But is is, are people,
once a person goes into a museum or
is sanctioned by a group of people,
does that make it such that
the masses say let's move on.
You know like what's that? What's that?
What happens to this person when they
become so famous and so expensive,
does it de, de, deplete or not the
right word, but take away from.
Oh, I think what we're seeing,
the development of the new model,
we don't quite know the answer
of how this happened. Okay.
What I think about is we followed how
some big stars in music haven't come
through the system. They haven't come
through record labels, art critics,
they just posted something on YouTube.
Billie Eilish came up that way. And,
it just builds. Yeah. So I,
I anticipate that we're going to see
visual artists emerge in this way.
So no platform of support.
Somebody who starts by putting out
images and builds a following and then a
larger following,
influencers get involved.
So I'm very interested to see this
challenge of this elaborate art world
endorsement system that so many
of us in the field are a part of.
Right. Right. You know,
things have changed, but,
but is there still a place
for Picasso and, and uh,
Andy and Basquiat and Keith Haring and
all the other people who have contributed
in this long, you know,
this long, you know,
tradition of beautiful art. Do they still
have a place in this modern world? Oh,
more than ever because people are
more visually fluent than ever.
And
so many people have access
to these images. They're,
they're looking them up. They know
the images, they know the vocabulary.
It's so we're talking about how
talented people can reach the public
by leapfrogging this stultified system.
Right?. Okay.
But ultimately quality, the work,
is what matters and work
that's superficial may get
a little bit of attention,
but it can't be sustained. You know,
the image has to be strong and there's
something that is essential about all the
art that lasts.
It's not just retinal
as Duchamp would say,
it has an intellectual
structure beneath it.
And if the art does not have
this intellectual structure,
it slowly just dissipates into the
cloud of all the images in our world.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate
you coming here. And doing this,
it's great. Thank you, and I was just
thinking about the bee keeper in the cave.
Good, always very stimulating
conversation. Thank you.
The cave image still lasts, right? Yeah.
That was a long time ago. Yeah.
Thanks for watching. Or listening.
Don't forget to subscribe. Click
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[inaudible].
