Since June 2010, the Museum of Contemporary Art
has had a new director: Jeffrey Deitch. His name is well-known in the arts' field, as
he was the director of galleries in New-York, which supported many growing-up
artists – mostly street artists – in the 90’s like Jean-Michel Basquiat or
Keith Haring.
His appointment as new director of the MOCA is
strongly criticized. He is reproached that he absolutely wants to reach record
levels of visitors, organizing “non-serious” and “non-academic” exhibitions.
But we have to say that the museum was about to close because of financial
problems. Charles Young, one of the former directors of the MOCA even asked the
chief sponsor (who saved the museum from the fail) to fire Deitch, followed by
1.500 signatories of an online petition.
One of the criticized exhibitions is “Art in the
Streets”, an exhibition about street art with more than 100 street artists, realized
with the movie maker Aaron Rose. That sounds coherent when we know the work of
the former director of private galleries.
However, Deitch is not that perfect. We agree to
say he wants street art to be recognized by people and Academies as a full-fledged
form of art, in the Art History, and not just like an illegal way of expression,
but he has his limits. When he calls Blu – an Italian street artist, today
considered as one of the best ones – to paint a wall of the museum, he finally
decides to whitewash the graffiti because of its anti-war and anti-capitalist
message.
Can we then think that the MOCA will become a great
new place for democratization of Arts but a bland museum, without this idea
that Arts have a place in the society, that they can denounce, criticize, or change
anything?
Sources:
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