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.
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