Jim Hodges

Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique is very pleased to present the work of Jim Hodges.

Walking past the gallery window during the first week of his presentation, one might mistake the space as hauntingly empty. Yet upon closer inspection, Jim Hodges’ and, 2022 reveals its graceful, ghostly presence in the far-left corner of the room. A gold-plated brass chain spiderweb, this sublimely discreet-as-it-is-elegant artwork embodies some of the paradoxes that have long animated Jim Hodges’ practice.

Embracing the contradictory poetry of spiderwebs, which have the power to appear overnight, unwanted and unexpected in between corners or objects, Hodges reveals, even celebrates the grace and complexity of nature, which operates in codes wonderfully alien to the human mind, connecting things and spaces splendidly senselessly between them.

The extreme fragility of the spiderweb - which in fact functions as a deadly trap to its preys, is reproduced and amplified in precious metals, creating an illusion of weightlessness whilst amplifying the web’s very intrusion in the space. By adorning an otherwise disregarded part of the room, Hodges not only makes context an integral element of the work itself, he also invites to rediscover the otherwise overlooked elements of our daily lives.

Similarly, yet with a completely different outcome, the artwork presented at Pièce Unique during the second week (May 9 – 13), A possible flower, 2023 is thoroughly concerned with its interaction with space. Flowers have often been the subject of Jim Hodges work. Born from his desire to paint a bouquet, A possible flower reduces the flower to its very essence, ending up in the form of 27 brightly colored pure color planes in variously sized, thin linen canvases painted on their surface and all four sides. Reminiscent of the artist’s late friend and artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who’s works were often entitled “possibles”, Hodges displays his panels in a spontaneous, intuitive interplay of color and proportions – creating both opposition and complementarity among their sizes, color, and color reflected on the wall. Like a flower bouquet arranged loosely, casually, separated, divided, Hodges explains that he originally made these to place them in his own home, for him to live among.

“I imagined installing them throughout my house, locating them along the pathways that I meander during my days. Thinking they might offer instances, a pause, a relationship of color and associations while acting like stations along a progression with no destination.”

Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique presents two works by Jim Hodges: and, a work from 2022, followed by A possible flower, 2023.

Jim Hodges was born in 1957 in Sopkane Washington; lives and works between Milan and New York.

Jim Hodges is known for his ability to transmit emotions and narratives to everyday objects, creating poignant and delicate artworks based on temporality, on life and on love, gaining inspiration from nature and from its lexicon. From the very first delicate wall sculpture, to the big pictures of flourishing trees, to the use of golden leaves and of the mirrored mosaics of the years 2000, Hodges’ art practice generates from humble and simple materials that are transformed through the artist’s touch. These delicate actions of transformation, that unify drawing and sculpture, represent evocative memories of desire and loss and the construction of a new identity.

Solo exhibitions include: 2022 - Impossible Flower, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, USA (2022); Location Proximity, Gladstone Gallery, New York, USA (2022); Love Power, Massimo De Carlo, Hong Kong (2020); I dreamed a world and called it Love, NYC Transit Grand Central-42 St Station, New York, USA (2020); Unearthed, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, USA (2019); Jim Hodges, Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, USA (2019); turning pages in the book of love, Massimo De Carlo, Milano, I (2017); With Liberty and Justice for All, The Contemporary Austin (2016); I dreamed a world and called it Love, Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2016); Jim Hodges: Give More Than You Take, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2014); Jim Hodges, Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2011); Jim Hodges: Love Etc., Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, F (2009); Directions - Jim Hodges, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., USA (2005); Jim Hodges: no betweens and more, Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, CA, USA (1997).

Group exhibitions include: In Bloom, Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique, Paris, F (2022); Multiple Sights—The Tenth Anniversary of the Long Museum, Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai, PRC (2022); Phraseology, The Bass Miami, Miami, USA (2022); America: Between Dreams and Realities, Selections from the Hischhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Musée national des beaux-arts, Québec, CDN (2022); Ambient Temperature, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, MEX (2021); Jinan Biennale, Shandong Museum, Jinan, PRC (2020); From Day to Day, De La Cruz Collection, Miami, USA (2019); Drawn Together Again, Flag Art Foundation, New York, USA (2019); Minneapolis Sculpture Garden: Grand Reopening, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA (2017); Deep Cuts: Contemporary Paper Cutting, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, USA (2017); Progressive Praxis, de la Cruz Collection, Miami, USA (2016); A Secret Affair: Selections from the Furhman Family Collection, The Flag Art Foundation, New York, USA (2015); Over, Under, Next: Experiments in Mixed Media, 1913-Present, Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., USA (2013); The Living Years: Art After 1989, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA (2012), I Am Still Alive: Politics and Everyday Life in Contemporary Drawing, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (2011); Collection: MoCA’s First Thirty Years, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA (2009), The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA (2004).