Jim Dine’s “Pop Self Expressionism”
Jim Dine is arguably one of the most important living American artists.
Currently at age 87 he has an oeuvre spanning the most creative period of American art. As an artist he has engaged in Neo Dadaism, Abstract Expressionism and most notably Pop Art.
His career began in 1958, when he, Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow became pioneers of the Happenings movement, in 1962 he was included in the influential exhibition “New Paintings of Common Objects” at the Pasadena Art Museum alongside Andy Warhol, Edward Ruscha, Robert Dowd and Roy Lichtenstein, the exhibition is now cited as the first institutional survey of American Pop Art.
Since then Dine has consistently distanced himself from the Pop Art movement, as explained in his own words "I’m not a Pop artist. I’m not part of the movement because I’m too subjective. Pop is concerned with exteriors. I’m concerned with interiors. When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings… What I try to do in my work is explore myself in physical terms—to explain something in terms of my own sensibilities."
Dines work is about the self, his self, each work tells us something about him, about his experiences, his life. He has over the years settled upon various motifs to express himself through his art, through his own private vocabulary. “The Bathrobe” he has presented as a self portrait of himself, “The Heart” as a evocation of his love for his art and emotions, the figure of “Pinnochio” has been represented by him in many forms and explains his artistic process of creation, the breathing of life into his creation, “Antique Sculpture” explains to us how Dine feels anchored to the legacy of ancient art and that his work is a progression of that which has come before, and then there’s the Raven and the Owl for which is best explained by Dine himself
"… the owl and the raven, they came from a dream. There is something about the owl and the raven that speaks obviously about death and also about immorality and also about wisdom, and also in the most creative sense of the picking up and scavenging for ideas. It's not what these things necessarily mean, because I wouldn't want to push such a literal message on to them. But that's how I've always gotten messages, somehow, through this trusting of these random thoughts and dreams and things that come to me as I'm doing anything…"
Lots Road is very pleased to be offering a work by this American master in our upcoming Sunday 14th May Fine Interiors Auction, this woodcut and soft ground etching is from his Ravens series printed and published by Julia D'Amario and Ruth Lingen, Pace Editions, Inc., New York in 2000 and will be offered as lot number 85.
