Jim Dine

On the occasion of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia this April, American painter, sculptor and poet Jim Dine takes over the Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù with an ambitious survey exhibition curated by Gerhard Steidl, Founding Director of the Kunsthaus Göttingen. Jim Dine - Dog on the Forge is a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Jim Dine - Dog on the Forge presents 32 new works from the artist. Paintings, drawings, bronze and wood sculptures, as well as an impressive outdoor installation of large-scale bronze sculptures. The exhibition debuts monumental and site-specific works conceived specifically for the Biennale Arte 2024. Never-before-exhibited paintings and sculptures will be arranged in dialogue with each other and with artworks spanning from the ‘80s through today. Curator Gerhard Steidl drew inspiration from Dine’s relentless odysseys between the United States and Europe, as well as his lifetime dedication to the concept of visual, cultural, and linguistic hybridization. “My whole life, I’ve been in motion. I find it difficult to sit still. It's a hyperactive quality, I would say. I’ve always enjoyed going from studio to studio, country to country. For me, traveling is like using red. It’s another thing to make the picture.”

Installed in a 14th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal, here the ancient meets contemporary in a palatial, Venetian context, casting a reflective light on Jim Dine’s personal history and perspective. Reinterpreting his now classical language of tools, hearts, self-portraits, Venuses and Pinocchios (which will have a dedicated room in the exhibition), the show will take over the two floors of the palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal as well as its 18th-century sculpture garden. When asked about the new paintings, Dine remarks, “I’m not interested in making them pretty. I’m interested in carving out images that will move you.” Conceived as a poetic journey, the exhibition outlines the complexity of an intimate oeuvre deeply rooted in his knowledge of European art history, and a relentless exploration of language and self.

The corresponding catalogue, Dog on the Forge, will be published by Editions Steidl with text by Gerhard Steidl. This exhibition is organized by the Kunsthaus Göttingen and supported by Templon.

Born in 1935, Jim Dine grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and started his career in the late 1950s in New York with a series of happenings that attracted great attention. In the 1960s, he exhibited his assemblages and first paintings alongside the new generation of pop artists, from Claus Oldenburg to Tom Wesselmann.

Jim Dine has spent the last 60 years traveling the world, sharing his time between various foundries, studios and print workshops, from Göttingen, Germany to New York and Walla-Walla in the U.S. to Saint Gallen, Switzerland. Over the last 50 years, poetry has been at the core of his practice, and he regularly gives readings and performances of his poems.

Jim Dine’s work is featured in over 70 public collections across the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, MoMA, Guggenheim, Albertina Museum in Vienna, Folkwang Museum in Essen, Centre Pompidou, Paris, The British Museum and Tate Britain in London.

His work has been presented in solo exhibitions around the world including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1967), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (1967 and 1978), the Palais des Beaux-Arts - Bozar in Brussels, Belgium (1970), La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California, USA (1974), The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (1988), the Setan Museum of Art & Museum of Art Tokyo & Osaka, Japan (1990), the Borås Konstmuseum Sweden, Switzerland (1993), the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Villa, Malibu, California, USA (2008), The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, USA (2009), the Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada (2010), the Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria (2016), the Antiken Museum, Basel, Switzerland (2016), the Accademia di San Luca, Rome, Italy (2017), the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018), the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia (2018), the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy (2020), and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (2020).

In 2023, Jim Dine inaugurated The Stardust House in Göttingen, Germany, a pavilion dedicated to the sculpture, Thru the stardust, the heat on the lawn. This exhibition was followed in June by the exhibition Storm of Memory at the Kunsthaus Göttingen, debuting new sculptures, drawings, prints and books. That same year, Dine also participated in the exhibition, Paravents at the Prada Foundation, as he inaugurated an exhibition of 74 portrait drawings donated to Bowdoin College, Maine, USA.