14 - THE CURTAIN CLOSES ON VENICE
As we close the doors on "Dog on the Forge" at the Palazzo Rocca in Venice, we extend our gratitude for your incredible support and enthusiasm. The appreciation Jim has received from all over the globe has made this journey deeply significant for our entire team.
While the exhibition may be ending, this is just the beginning of many exciting projects and events to come. Stay connected with us as we continue to explore and celebrate the vibrant world of Jim Dine's art.
Read on to see memories from Venice and Part III of Brigitte Adés exclusive interview with Jim, exploring instinct, inspiration and introspection.
We look forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks!
—Jim Dine Studio
Memories from Venice
A CONVERSATION IN MONTROUGE, CONTINUED
French writer Brigitte Adés recently interviewed Jim Dine. The result is a deep and informative discussion, providing a comprehensive understanding of Jim’s work. The interview offers a profound exploration of Jim’s creative process, inspirations, and reflections on his remarkable career.
This is the final installment of a three part interview between Brigitte Adés and Jim Dine.
Photography: Matthew Dine
PART III: INSTINCT, INSPIRATION, AND INTROSPECTION
By Brigitte Adés, March 2024
BA: Following your work all those years, I realize that you have always kept telling us about yourself, you still do even on your huge canvases, with such a variety of colors. Again, focusing on them gives us many indications about yourself, as if each inch was in fact a juxtaposition of your landscapes. Each part has a story, a specific narrative, telling something about yourself.
JD: Thank you for detecting this. Yes that’s what I do and want to convey. I try to be precise and to tell my emotion and to express my exact state of mind at the time I stand in front of part of the canvas. And I do it through colors.
I am a great admirer of Morandi and the very close level of colors he uses is beautiful and modulated. But I am never like that. To me it’s what I pick up and it’s usually similar colors. My favorite color is red, and I use it often. I never asked for it, it came to me. It was a gift to me unconsciously.
BA: So your work is fascinatingly instinctive, you are projecting your soul on the canvas, your hand is guided by your unconscious without preconceptions or ideas.
JD: There is a structure in my mind yes, but I mainly trust my unconscious. I have such trust in my unconscious. It is what was given to me, like a higher being. They have given me a gift of such richness. It s like a load of gold; it’s like mining. I feel like an alchemist that is what I do, what artists do. We turn debris into gold. And that is my unconscious. If I lived to be three hundred it would never let me down. There is so much material so much there I trust it I think it is a shame when people waste it when people deny it. I think it’s ridiculous in fact.
BA: Another facet of your creativity is expressed through your poems. As soon as we enter your studio, we are surrounded by your poems. You write on doors, on the wall. They seem very much part of yourself and your art too…
JD: I heard poetry the first time thanks to a university professor at the great arts program. He was teaching me sculpture but one evening some of his friends came in the studio. They read Dylan Thomas and I thought to myself: “I can do that”. It was a revelation to me. After the loss of my mother I had become dyslexic and couldn’t read the letters correctly. I guess it was psychological too but I had a hard time at school. And it wasn’t until then, with this great university professor, that I realized I could write. And that’s when I began to write poetry too.
BA: How do you get your inspiration to compose poems? Is it different than for your paintings?
JD: A lot of my inspiration whether for poetry, painting, drawing or sculpture, comes from my experiences, from my observing, from my listening, from my childhood, and from my unconscious... I don’t see a difference between the poetry and the painting. They both participate to my creation. Both stem from a study of my inner self except that I am a better painter than a poet. First of all I started later and I then I just am.
BA: How do you get inspired to pick a specific theme? Do you ever use your dreams as inspiration?
JD: Again more like paintings where I trust the objet trouvé or a color, I read a page and I come upon a phrase in a poem and I tear the page out of the book.
I tell myself: “I can use that line, like I use the color red for painting.” For example, I know that it can be starting point to make the whole poem so the poem is not necessarily a dream, I rarely use dreams in fact.
BA: Do you see poetry as another way to depict and celebrate your life?
JD: I still have a very good memory and I use the past as raw material at my disposal.
Lately these days, I have been enjoying thinking about my youth and about the friends I had or experiences I had as a child, recalling my meetings with neighbors, and then making it in a kind of mysterious poetry that is was then for me. I had for example, a neighbor who collected butterflies and I never knew people collected butterflies and he would take me to his basement and show me all these butterflies which were pinned and had names. That was so fantastic for me that I never was appalled by the fact that he killed all these poor butterflies, instead I thought it was an amazing collection. Writing a poem, I recreate the mysteriousness about all these discoveries and experiences as it was then for me.
Other poems recall worrying moments still vivid in my mind. We lived near an insane asylum which was very frightening for me as as a young boy. You would go by the place which was very 19th century and the inmates would be outside watching us, acting strange. With my playmates, we all talked about it. This is more powerful than a dream because you bring to it something so amazing about your perception at this early stage of your life. I convert also past trauma into poems.
BA: Apart from the introspections of your past life, do you also get inspired by digging into your unconscious to write poetry?
JD: All my inspiration comes from my unconscious. I dig into my inner self and use even past trauma and convert them into art.
BA: In your poem entitled ‘resolutely happy’, you actually reflect on the death of your mother and how the family didn’t understand your needs, making sure you wouldn’t talk about it when it was the only thing in your mind. How it resonated with you. A beautiful poem in fact.
Do you feel the need to have processed your traumas before you can write a poem about them?
JD: It is often the case yes but not always. It took me years to get over the loss of my mother, but when I finally did, I was able to use the material and emotion for my work as an artist. It became a vein of gold.
BA: With your bright colors, the energy and the brightness of your art, you appear as an optimist. Is it your real state of mind to be resolutely optimistic or is it a conscious decision?
JD: My state of mind, absolutely. I am resolutely optimistic. I am grateful every day for having been allowed to do what I love and to practice my art as a painter. My life consists now in working constantly, All I ever do is work, transcribing my state of mind through painting, and I am enjoying every minute of the process. I have no interest in anything else anymore. I used to like going to museums or socializing, but I want to go forward because the future for me is now, so there is only so much time and I don’t waste it, and my pleasure is to work. Through colors, I express the exuberance I feel about what I do and how fortunate I am to be born with this gift. It’s my way of respecting that gift, of celebrating it.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
The DOG ON THE FORGE exhibition catalogue is available for purchase.
This stunning Steidl publication captures the essence of the exhibition at the historic Palazzo Rocca and is a must-have for any art enthusiast.
Jim Dine: Dog on the Forge
136 pages, 85 images
Hardback
18 x 24 cm
English
€ 25.00
Published by Steidl
JIM DINE: DOG ON THE FORGE
20 April — 21 July 2024
La Biennale di Venezia
Organizing Institution: Kunsthaus Göttingen, Germany
Supported by TEMPLON
