hyde or die

» James Franco at MOCA...Sure Jeffrey, why not?

The other is MOCA’s involvement with James Franco, the actor who has cast himself as an artist in more ways than one. According to Deitch, Franco the actor will resume his role as Franco the artist on “General Hospital” this summer only to leave the fictional Port Charles for Los Angeles at one point because he has landed (still storyline here) a show with MOCA.

If this helps to clarify: “General Hospital’s” shoot will take place at MOCA’s Pacific Design Center location this month, and the film that the real Franco is making based on the soap-opera project will be screened at the museum at a later date.

I just don’t have the energy to get into this right now…Maybe later?

Actually, I don’t know if I will ever have the appropriate energy to actually tackle this.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go look at pictures of kittens to cleanse my pallate of this garbage.

June 07, 2010, 11:52am  

Remember toward the end of 2008 when MOCA had negative money and were flayling around and everyone was panicking and then Super Eli came to the rescue? Well, the LA Times is now reporting that the Attorney General found that not only were they very good at going broke, they were very good at breaking laws!

Instead of reducing spending, MOCA paid some of its bills with money from endowments that donors had earmarked for other purposes, Johns found; she noted that the law requires either that nonprofits get written permission from donors before using restricted endowments in other ways, or that they obtain court orders overriding the restrictions. “The withdrawals we reviewed did not follow this standard,” Johns wrote.

…

As a consequence, MOCA was ordered to take two “required corrective actions” — hiring a consultant to help it come up with newer and better financial procedures, and special training for all museum board members “to ensure that they fully understand their fiduciary duties.”

via…

Well, this should be interesting to watch. Deitch is on his way over. They are now going to have to hire consultants. I haven’t heard if they are still having that fundraiser at Blum + Poe, but that’s not good.

I have to wonder if they are just counting on more attendence and interest because they have their hearts set on Eli Broad having his museum downtown and having that fix a lot of their publicity woes.  Now that Beverly Hills has bowed out of the competition, it’s only DTLA and Santa Monica going head to head.  Where the ball stops, nobody knows.

April 16, 2010, 9:48am  

» Deitch to have Julian Schnabel curate a Dennis Hopper retrospective for inaugural show.

Some people may not be into this, but I really am.  Schnabel is a more than competent curator, Hopper is an incredible and underrated photographer who’s oevre covers not only the hayday of American art in the 70’s and on, but he captures the essence of Los Angeles(and other cities) as well.  I think this is overdue, and focus on Los Angeles artists is never a bad thing.

April 15, 2010, 9:45am  

Deitch, what are you doing?!  I am not completely confident, but I am under the distinct impression if you are planning on doing something unethical you keep that knowledge to yourself.  Which loosely translates to not telling anyone. Especially not the press!  Maybe he doesn’t think dealing while Director (DWD..heh) is unethical? In which case we have ANOTHER problem. Ugh…Here’s what happened.

(Could Deitch) possibly unload some pieces from his personal collection “to supplement a museum director’s salary.”

But instead of talking to me about his personal collection, (Deitch) discussed his gallery’s “enormous” unsold inventory. He couldn’t possibly liquidate his entire stock in the next three months, he told me, so he expected occasionally to put some of those pieces up for auction.

“Isn’t that ‘dealing’?” I blurted out, thrown off-guard by this astonishing admission.

He then backpedaled: He would sell only lesser works at minor auctions “like Christie’s Open.” (Works in Christie’s most recent First Open sale went for as much as $842,500.) The more important pieces would be transferred from his gallery’s inventory to his private collection (from which he had previously stated that he might occasionally sell works).

He then reverted to Jeffrey-as-victim, complaining about being subjected to this importunate line of questioning when he was sacrificing “millions of dollars in opportunity costs” (i.e., money that he would otherwise have made), by giving up future gallery earnings for a nonprofit museum director’s salary.

via…

March 17, 2010, 11:46am  

Curbed LA is reporting that he has (Downtown LA), his foundation is reporting that he hasn’t.

What do you say, let’s start a pool on when he will finally announce it and what the location will be?

I say, Thursday and Downtown LA.  The allure of his buddy Deitch at MOCA is too strong.  Also, he just sunk $30 million into saving MOCA, so he might as well bring even more visitors to the area with the allure of seeing 2 contemporary museums in one trip.

Clarification: The location choices are Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Downtown.

March 17, 2010, 10:46am  

Hitler learns about Jeffery Deitch at MOCA.

Chances are you have already seen this, but in case you haven’t…

February 09, 2010, 10:48am  

I am going to do a link round-up today, because there are some interesting things going on, but I don’t have the time to get into each.  Can’t have you guys missing out though.

• theartnewspaper.com asks “What is the sin MoCA and Jeffery Deitch Committed?”
• Speaking of Deitch, his last show is going to be Shepard Fairey. Seriously.
• Museums should think bigger.
• An Eames chair walks into a Blimpie…
• Tyler Green on the New Topographics show at LACMA.
• I believe that Harry Winston has been possessed by Ed Hardy.
• Speaking of Ed Hardy, love me some Ed Hardy Boyz.
• In case you forgot, the Taschen sale is still this weekend. Looks to be all locations.
• The Govan/Scorsese conversation was just as predictable/boring as I thought it would be.
• Flavorwire reviews new online magazine ilovethatphoto.

January 21, 2010, 2:28pm