Jeffrey Deitch's first show at MOCA: Dennis Hopper, curated by Julian Schnabel

Jeffrey Deitch has scheduled his first exhibition as the incoming director of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Reached by phone last night after a flight from New York to Los Angeles, he confirmed that it will be a survey of works by actor and artist Dennis Hopper, curated by larger-than-life painter and director Julian Schnabel.

Deitch, who has spent the last 14 years running the gallery Deitch Projects in New York, starts his new museum job June 1. The show is slated to open at MOCA on July 11.

“Dennis is a very inspiring figure for me,” said the art dealer turned museum director. “The American art world often likes to put artists into boxes. You’re an artist, not a filmmaker. You’re a photographer, not a painter. But Dennis shows you can blur those boundaries, which is very current and exciting.” 

Although most big museum exhibitions take years to organize, Deitch had the idea for this show just a couple of months ago when visiting Schnabel, a longtime friend of Hopper, who, at 73, has advanced prostate cancer.

“We’re rushing this exhibition because Dennis is ailing,” Deitch says, “and I wanted him to be able to participate in the selection of works. He saw the space with us last week.” 

“Art Is Life,” as the exhibition is called, promises to be one of MOCA’s flashier shows, given its art-meets-Hollywood connections.

Schnabel, who made his name with broken-plate paintings during the art boom of the 1980s, has arguably found his real calling as a film director, with such movies as “Basquiat” (1996), “Before Night Falls” (2000), and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007).

Hopper, famous for playing drug-fueled counterculture characters in the 1960s, also has brought a certain adventurousness to making art.

Over the years, he has made Abstract Expressionist paintings, Pop Art assemblages, portrait photography and, by the 1980s and '90s, graffiti-inspired paintings and photographs. His best-known photographs from the '60s chronicle famous figures he has known, including Paul Newman and Tina Turner, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol (whose soup can painting Hopper, an early fan of Pop Art, once bought for $75).

Deitch says the MOCA show will include work from all of these periods, as well as a few film projects, such as a "sculptural installation" that projects “Easy Rider” and two other Hopper movies.

MOCA’s incoming director also is thinking big when it comes to exhibition design. He is meeting with Frank Gehry this week to talk about the possibility of collaborating on the show. “At this point, we’re just discussing it,” Deitch says. “We’ll see to what degree it makes sense.”

Soon after Deitch accepted the job at MOCA, art critics flagged potential conflicts of interest in part because of his personal art collection. Asked about the artists involved in this show, Deitch said he did not own any works by Hopper or Schnabel. “I have zero commercial involvement in this,” he said.

But critics could pose an even more basic question in this case: Is Hopper’s art worth all this attention? “That’s one of the reasons I want to do the show,” Deitch said. “It’s good to have a mission. I want to try to explain why he’s important for a new generation.”

-- Jori Finkel

Photos, from top: Dennis Hopper in 2008 and Julian Schnabel in 2007. Credit: Spencer Weiner / For the Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Andy]

I had the priveledge to meet/work with Dennis Hopper on a film called 'Colours'.. I was always a big fan of his since 'Easy Rider'( i even bought a 'star apangled shirt and chopper). He is a extremely talented, gracious and hysterically funny man and i will always remember his advice to me during ADR one day: " Talent need confidence to succeed".. Just go for it...Cool man...Cool.

[N. Klein]

I'm so sorry for senior curators, assistant curators and in fact everyone who works at MOCA. This is just sad. For such a great museum to be embarrassed in this way. It's really painful to those of us who have been members and have loved the high quality of MOCA's exhibitions for so many years. How can this happen?

[petelogic]

Like his performances in many films, such as in " True Romance", He is just a talent as an actor. looking forward to seeing his work of art.

[Donald Frazell]

He is important to a nearly dead generation. The youngsters dont care, maybe artsy types, but they are what, a coupla thousand?

Probably a step up, and better than the absurd Beuys exhibit over at the BCAM. Still not art, but what has been there? More parties, yeah!

art collegia delenda est
Save the Watts Twoers, tear down these Ivories.

[roy rogers]

i'd love to see this exhibit. wish it could be on the west coast. nothing sad about it at all.

[RChatt]

Maybe it's better to wait to see the exhibition before being making a judgment...or giving condolences. I briefly looked at some of Hopper's photographs online and there's nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact they were interesting aesthetically and historically and I'd like to see more. Hopefully there will be enough work to pull together for a show.

The bigger point here is that Deitch has a lot of experience with contemporary art and artists and is a serious and committed professional. Given a chance, he will undoubtedly make a major contribution to the art scene in Los Angeles.

[artalamode]

and Mark Bradford can't get a show...

Just makes us more of an entertainment city, then again that's what were know for...

[Art_is_BS]

What a bunch of dorks. Why does anyone spend their life promoting themselves as some sort of better human being?

Hey, look what a great guy I am!
My art is better than yours!
Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!

These clowns are role models? For what, exactly? How to be cool and hip? Yeah, that's a great life plan to promote.

[mark]

Actually N. Klein, if I would have read this article just two months ago I might have thought the same...but fortunately my girlfriend did her Masters Thesis on Wallace Berman and explained to me that Hopper was actually deeply involved in that burgeoning LA art scene.
So this is actually much more credible than meets the eye.

[Dennis Mays]

I saw a painting up on ebay that was Basquiat-like and dedicated to Hopper. He is still alive, isn't he?

[Cal Godot]

Fantastic! Hopper has a great eye!

[Peter John Andros]

Dennis Hopper is one ambitious, self-obsessed human being possessed of a rather minor, very minor, talent for acting and imitative painting. He falls into the category of someone pathetically in need of love and recognition...god, where did his family go wrong. This show is so much Hollywood nonsense for a dying personality...prostate cancer, no less...did he ever go for medical checkups
in-between lighting up his stogie cigars and boozing...

[ASDF]

I own a book of photos of Hopper. He was quite the shutterbug back in the 60s and definitely into the LA art scene (wasn't he the ONLY person to buy a Soup Can painting from Warhol's first exhibit at Ferus Gallery?). If he stayed only in art he could have become as prominent as Ed Ruscha. But as someone noted this might not be "important" art, but it''ll be a good party and Hopper has some bona fides - nothing to be embarrassed about. No worse than LACMA showing the Vanity Fair photo collection or MoMA showing a Tim Burton exhibition.

[Mary Pickford]

Awesome. Very new art history, very LA, a little bit wtf. Bravo Deitch. I'm totally excited about him leading MOCA. Haters get a life.

[N. Klein]

Oh please! The choices are Marc Bradford or Dennis Hopper? That's it? Poor Marc Bradford - he's making millions on his bland art. Like I said good for him - but nothing ENTITLES him to a show at any museum in LA. And poor Dennis Hopper he an actor who bought a Warhol Soup Can. I bought an Eames Chair - and I also make chairs - does that make me a furniture designer worthy of an exhibition? Dennis Hopper had a show at Hiro Yamagata's gallery 10 years ago and that's where that stuff belongs - in a Hollywood "art" gallery. Shame on all of you. This is a travesty for every serious artist in LA (who isn't a movie star) and every serious curator and art lover. It's for the "public" whoever that may be. Sylvester Stallone is a painter. Let's hope his show is next!

[Donald Frazell]

I aint hatin, just not fallin for the okiedoke. Probably a wonderful man, Well, Ok, not from the dumb jerks he always plays, just a brain cell destroyed acid head with issues. His stuff is fairly harmless, just lacking anything worth feeling, and feeling with the eyes, as one does the ears in music, is what art does. Or did, til the eggheads moved in and ruined the neighborhood.

Go ahead, make his day. Not like anything important was going to show there anyway. Party on dude!

See ya at the Towers Saturday AM, need to make a photo shoot for the pamplet. Now THATs art, how come you never had a party for Sam Rodia? Picasso had one for Rousseau, I think you got the wrong midget. Yes, all actors are midgets, tall guys become athletes to get the girls. Though girls are not exactly always on artistes minds. mmmmmmm

art collegia delenda est
Save the Towers! Visit Nuestro Pueblo, how many of you ever have?

[Lisa W]

Oh boy does this sound like crap. Yeah, Hopper was in the scene in the 1960s and took some decent photos but ... that does not add up to all that much. Sorry, but he is no Ed Ruscha. This just sounds like someone's bad idea of good PR and phony glamour. Not a good sign of what is to come with Deitch at MoCA. And Schnabel to curate? Please. This is like the worst of the 80s.

[David W.]

I'm intrigued by all of the hub-bub raised about this decision. Art is so much more than is dictated by the "rules" and I'm happy to see something unorthodox happen in this city. There's so much great art happening right here in Los Angeles, and the city's art institutions should represent it. Dennis Hopper is part of that local art history, like it or not!
I love it when I see something dynamic and interesting and unexpected happen on the art scene! And so many of these things NEVER reach the public's eye because the press doesn't cover it.

Right now there's an art installation on display at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles that I haven't heard ONE public word about, even though it's a public installation viewable on one of LA's busiest streets, La Cienega! (FYI... It's a gigantic window ad two-stories tall of a naked man offering himself for sale as an "art-slave" as an alternative to the over-priced modern-day art objects being sold by "art world celebrities." It's a really intriguing piece, and not something you would normally see! IT'S DIFFERENT and CONTROVERSIAL and EXCITING and NO ONE is commenting on it!)

It seems the LA art world only sees what it wants to see... and complains when someone else opens their eyes to something different.

[Robert Salm (Chicago)]

Celebrity Cash + Celebrity Gallerist/Hack Museum Director + Has-Been Actor/Weekend Artist +Has-Been Artist/Weekend Film Director. Glad it's your MOCA and not our MCA.

[Elodie St. Clair]

This is just a tragedy. So many people worked so hard for so many years to make the MOCA arguably the most influential contemporary art museum in the world. Now this circus clown Deitch is coming in and throwing it all away. What a truly sad, sad development. The whole thing is just such a shame.