17 - Notes on Albertina
Essay by Jim Dine
Photographs © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna. Photo: Ana Paula Franco
On November 7, 2024, Klaus Schroder, the Director of the Albertina Museum in Vienna opened a new show, Jim Dine, a sweeping exhibition of prints drawn from the Albertina’s own significant collection (the largest holding of my work in Europe).
As the author of this group of lithographs, etchings and woodcuts, I have never seen the work so intelligently and elegantly displayed.
There are in particular two portraits of Diana Michener that struck me as though I’d not seen them before.
One is an etching and lithograph combination, Diana at the Beaux-Arts, Version II, 2016. I printed the lithograph of her and then I dropped an etching of the same visage over the intaglio. The effect is a buzzing line that refers to her combination of intelligence and uncommon sensitivity to everything black and white and gray.
The other is a large lithograph drawn on stone at Tamarind print workshop in 2007 called Big Diana with Poem.
She seems to be sitting for the portrait with the poem over her shoulder on the wall. I wrote the poem in Albuquerque just after I drew her on the large stone. The poem speaks of the state of things at that moment, that day and about that occasion, that my hand makes reference to. The idea that what I drew on wood, copper and Bavarian limestone should be exhibited and cared for in slightly oriental-Vienna is a fact.
Left: Jim Dine, Diana at the Beaux-Arts, Version II, 2016, lithograph with etching, 29 7/8 x 22 1/2 in/ 76.0 x 57.0 cm
Right: Jim Dine, Big Diana with Poem, 2007, lithograph, 44 2/5 × 30 1/10 inches/112.8 × 76.5 cm, edition of 20
Admission by horrible children, feelingThe oriental carpet /An occasional radio voice andAthena’s ghostYou seem untroubled by the eclipseNor strangled by theLong nights painSuperb !Says the mirror-—Jim Dine
JIM DINE
8 November 2024 - 23 March 2025
ALBERTINA Museum
The ALBERTINA Museum presents the highlights of its large collection of works by Jim Dine - a representative selection of the artist's generous donation that represents his oeuvre in a multifaceted way.
The group of self-portraits allows for an independent, intensive and surprising dialogue with the artist and his work. Dine experiments with a variety of techniques and materials and explores youth and age, intimacy and extraversion as well as seriality and creativity on paper. His figurative motifs such as bathrobes, hearts or tools can be read as representatives of the artist - as an objectification of his feelings, as Dine himself explains. The use and further development of different printing processes testify to Dine's fascination with printmaking techniques in general. The upcoming exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of these aspects of his work.
