'60 Minutes' surveys art market with Eli Broad, Jeffrey Deitch

 

On Sunday, "60 Minutes" aired a segment surveying the current art-market boom, with Morley Safer reporting from Art Basel Miami Beach.  While the segment didn't offer much in the way of new news, especially for people who follow the contemporary art scene, it featured interviews with three key players of the L.A. art world -- Eli Broad, Jeffrey Deitch and Tim Blum.

Safer's report is a follow-up to his 1993 segment "Yes... but is it art?" The controversial piece questioned whether certain cutting-edge works qualified as art and landed Safer in hot water with some viewers who branded him a philistine.

Sunday's story attempted to examine why the art market has managed to outperform the S&P 500 and defy the current economic recession. Blum, who is the co-owner of the Blum & Poe gallery, described today's art market as the "wild west" and a "bizarre place to do business."

Jeffrey Deitch to appear on '60 Minutes' on Sunday

Jeffrey Deitch, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and former art dealer, will appear on CBS' "60 Minutes" this Sunday as part of a segment that looks into the boom in the contemporary art market. But will Deitch appear in his capacity as the head of a nonprofit museum, or as an art-market insider?

Some of both, it seems. Sunday's segment is a follow-up to Morley Safer's 1993 story about the contemporary art scene titled "Yes... But is it art?" In the old segment, Safer questioned whether certain pieces qualified as art. The broadcast turned out to be one of the most "controversial stories in our 44 years on the air," according to the veteran correspondent.

The new segment visits Art Basel in Miami Beach for a look at current art prices and to ask why the art market has managed to outperform the S&P 500 index in recent years.

In a brief excerpt on the "60 Minutes" site, Deitch talks with Safer about the rise in prices of certain artists. He notes that in 1993, a Jeff Koons work was "very well sold at $250,000." These days, a Koons work can command $25 million or more, he said.

Art dealers Larry Gagosian and Tim Blum -- who co-owns the Blum & Poe gallery, located in L.A. -- are also interviewed in the segment. 

Deitch became director of MOCA in 2010. Prior to that, he was owner of Deitch Projects in New York, where he represented a number of prominent and hip young artists. His appointment to a major nonprofit museum was seen as controversial because of his commercial art-world ties.

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-- David Ng

Photo: Jeffrey Deitch at the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Dean Valentine and Mark Grotjahn settle on resale royalties

After more than a year of court filings and hearings and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, artist Mark Grotjahn and Dean Valentine, one of his earliest collectors, have settled a high-profile dispute over the payment of the resale royalty specified by California law.

Although the law providing a 5% royalty to artists whose “original” (one of a kind—not editioned) artwork is resold at a profit has been on the books since 1976, it has been widely neglected and unevenly enforced. Remarkably few lawsuits have been filed over the statute until Grotjahn pursued his case in 2010 and a different group of artists filed a class-action suit against Christie’s, Sotheby’s and EBay last fall.

Grotjahn’s case had been scheduled to go to trial on March 6. Instead, after court-ordered mediation,  Valentine agreed to pay Grotjahn $153,255 to settle the case. This figure includes the 5% resale royalty (plus interest) on one painting and one drawing that the collector had bought and resold, amounting to $68,255, plus $85,000 toward Grotjahn’s legal fees.

Monster Mash: Annie Leibovitz's new show; 'Superstar' kerfuffle

'Christ' clash: Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber are publicly at odds over a new production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," which Webber plans to cast via a television contest. (Telegraph)

Interview: Annie Leibovitz's new show of landscapes and objects at the Smithsonian is a departure from her popular celebrity portraits. (Associated Press/Washington Post)

Sale of the ancients: Desperate for funds, Greece's Culture and Tourism Ministry announced new lower rates for permits to film at the Acropolis and other historical sites. (Bloomberg News)

For the record: The Atlantic Theater Co. is mounting the play "CQ/CX," which deals with former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who was fired for filing false stories. (Playbill)

Tense talks: Union art handlers and the Whitney Museum are in protracted negotiations over a contract that expires Jan. 31 -- just before preparation for March’s Whitney Biennial kicks into high gear. (Art Info)

Silent ball: In celebration of the documentary "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present," the performance artist hosted a Silence Is Golden fete at Sundance. (New York Magazine)

Noisy fest: London's Southbank Centre will host a yearlong music festival in 2013, inspired by critic Alex Ross' study of 20th century classical music, "The Rest is Noise." (Guardian)

Stage presence: Actor Helen Hunt and director David Cromer talk about their production of "Our Town," playing at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. (KCRW's Soundcloud)

Dominant company: Led by best director Mike Leigh ("Grief") and best actor Benedict Cumberbatch ("Frankenstein"), London's National Theatre won more than half of the 2011 Critics Circle Stage Awards. (Stage)

Lipstick on a corpse? New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced plans to demolish the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, but architect Bruce S. Fowle is continuing with a $390-million renovation started six years ago. (New York Times)

Passing: Experimental filmmaker Robert Nelson dies at 81. (New York Times)

Also in the L.A. Times: Charles McNulty reviews "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

-- Margaret Wappler

Photo: Photographer Annie Leibovitz leads a media tour of her exhibit, "Pilgrimage," at the Smithsonian. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press

 

Monster Mash: Brian Stokes Mitchell on 'Glee'; a new Liz auction

That explains it: Tony award-winning actor Brian Stokes Mitchell and film and television's Jeff Goldblum will appear on "Glee" as Rachel's gay dads. (Broadwayworld. com)

Sign of hope: The New York City Opera and its orchestra union have reached a tentative agreement on a contract, a step toward a new season. (New York Times)

Saved: The American Folk Art Museum is declared "reasonably secure," with more than $3.5 million in contributions and pledges since it sold its main building to the Museum of Modern Art last year. (Bloomberg News)

For sale: Elizabeth Taylor's collection of paintings and drawings by British modernist Augustus John will be sold at a Christie's auction in February. (The Telegraph)

Encyclopedia black: Wikipedia and other popular websites will black out their services Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. (Los Angeles Times)

Circling for a space: Big-name architects are taking on the most basic of urban structures: parking garages. (Wall Street Journal)

Asian power: Chinese artist Zhang Daqian surpasses former champion Picasso as top auction earner, with $506.7 million from auctions in 2011 alone. (Huffington Post)

Early music boon: The Juilliard School announces a $20-million gift to endow its graduate-level program in historical performance. (New York Times)

Spy zone: The heart of the former East German police state -- the office of Stasi chief Erich Mielke -- has been restored as a museum, "Haus 1," open now in Berlin. (BBC News)

Generous: "Phantom of the Opera" will celebrate its 10,000th performance on Broadway with a benefit for the Actors Fund on Feb. 11. (Theater Mania)

Tribute: Writer Jake Gorst reflects on contributions from his grandfather, architect Andrew Geller, to mid-century design. (The Architect's Newspaper)

Passing: Gustav Leonhardt, master harpsichordist, dies at 83. (New York Times)

Also in the LA Times: Jori Finkel previews the PST Performance Art Festival; David Ng follows the 'Spider-Man' vs. Julie Taymor scuffle; more casting news for the L.A. staged reading of Dustin Lance Black's Proposition 8 play, "8."

-- Margaret Wappler

Photos, from left: Jeff Goldblum (Credit: AFP/Getty Images); Lea Michele (Adam Rose / Fox); Brian Stokes Mitchell (handout).

Sitting down with Damien Hirst

One thing you learn from interviewing Damien Hirst is that he's a good storyteller. Yes, the stories are filled with expletives that can make them hard to convey in a mainstream newspaper. And he talks so quickly that the anecdotes are over before you know it -- these are not 19th-century Dickensian  narratives.

But he tells funny stories about his colleagues and dealers and rather wry anecdotes about himself. Here are a few bits that didn't make it into a Saturday article about Hirst and his mega exhibition of spot paintings.

-- He has on occasion broken the rule that the colors in a single spot painting should be randomly chosen. "My mom had a painting I gave her and there was one color I didn't like. It was like a purple, so next time I visited her, I changed it to orange."

-- Wanting to own one of the five original spot paintings he made himself about two decades ago before turning the work over to assistants, Hirst had to buy one back from a collector. "I sold it for 300 pounds and ended up buying it back for 600,000." Insert expletive here.

-- He once had a spot painting hanging in a spot visible from his window, which got the neighbors talking. "It was the late '90s and I lived in a nice flat in Kensington in a place called Cranley Mews. I came out one day looking very scruffy, and my neighbor came up to me and said, 'Excuse me: can I ask who you are.' I said my name was Damien. 'Are you Damien Hirst?' she said. 'Oh. We wondered how you could afford a spot painting.'

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-- Jori Finkel

www.twitter.com/jorifinkel

Photo: Damien Hirst at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times