Gabbia Bongiorno - Agnellini Arte Moderna

kimono is an expression of male self-belief. It presents
an attractive, manly icon representative of the artist’s
self-image; it is a “false” statement, in the same way
as those represented by ancient Greek kouroi. In a
monography on Jim Dine by Marco Livingstone, the
writer says that there is nothing simplistic about the
robe image, but that it is produced by Dine in a “conscious
effort to realize an identity, both personal and
existential”. On the subject of this unusual pictorial
subject, Dine said, “it somehow looked like me, and I
thought I’d make that a symbol for me”. The repetition
of the theme is similar to an introspective act whose
multiple versions can be considered a series of variations:
like variations of the seasons, moods, colours,
tones or contrasts, all of which symbolise the development
of the instants which, when linked together, form
life. Jim Dine is an adept at the reinterpretations that he
applies to his favourite subjects – hearts, Venuses, parrots,
death heads – and these tireless revisitations are
a characteristic of his style. He also contributes actively
to the long history of painting and sculpture by taking
such eternal themes as the Venus de Milo (of which he
offers us a contemporary interpretation) which fall within
a tradition that goes back to remote ages.
During the 1990s he worked on the subconscious
mind, which he explored using photography. Writing,
skulls, birds and drawings are some of the elements
that he integrated into his compositions, allowing him
to represent himself in a universe close to a waking
dream. His photography is lavish and poetic and he
uses it to expose the subconscious minds of his models
(his wife, friends and even his own face). Often
photographs of photographs of photographs, his recent
works create ambiguous images in which the faces are
traversed by light or remarkably defined decorations.
The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris
held a large retrospective of his work in 2003.
Jim Dine has received many awards and honours in
both the United States and Europe, including being
appointed a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres
in 2003 in Paris.
His work is very widely shown in the USA, for example,
the exhibition in 2004 at the National Gallery of Art
in Washington, D.C. In 2007 the Bibliothèque Nationale
de France in Paris provided the setting for a retrospective
of the prints he made since 1976 with Aldo Crommelynck,
an engraver and printer of legendary status.
More than a hundred engravings illustrate this work and
offer a journey through the work of a prolific artist who
has never ceased to produce or invent. The overriding
concern in his art, even in the Pop Art he produced at
the start of his career, has always been the expression
of a personal, interior world.
1. Blog Archive, Graphic Art,
Le Roy et Mister, 2008.
2. Pierre Restany, in Le Nouveau
Réalisme, Transédition, Paris,
2007, p. 116.
3. Ibid, p. 112.
4. Harold Rosenberg, in Jean
E. Fineberg, Jim Dine, Abbeville
Press, New York, 1995, p. 17.
5. Ibid, p. 18.
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JIM DINE
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