The Getty Villa opens Jim Dine ~ Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets) |
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| Tuesday, 28 October 2008 04:45 |
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Dine's newly created installation of sculpture and poetry will be on view October 30, 2008 through February 9, 2009 at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets), the first contemporary art project at the re-opened Getty Villa. "Since the Getty Center opened in 1997, we have been actively engaged with contemporary art through special installations and our temporary exhibition program, with a special interest in looking at how artists draw inspiration from works in our collection," says Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. "Jim Dine's work at the Getty Villa not only brings a contemporary artist's perspective to our antiquities collection, but it demonstrates the persistence of the ancient world in the way objects created in antiquity continue to inspire us today."  Dine is an artist who epitomizes the fluid nature of contemporary art through his experimentations with all sorts of media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and poetry. Those less familiar with Dine's work might be surprised by his relationship with antiquities, but according to the artist he has had "a great romance with the ancient world." In addition to his long-running interest in the Venus de Milo, an iconic figure of antiquity, he has pursued several drawing projects involving ancient sculpture at the Munich Glyptothek. Thus, it is not surprising that Dine was inspired by works of ancient art in the Getty's collection, and was moved to create his own variations."When I saw those three figures at the Getty, I knew this was for me and I didn't question why it was for me, I just felt it," Dine explains. "And that's what I do, that's how I work. I didn't work from the piece directly, but it's the idea of the piece that inspired me." Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets) is comprised of larger-than-life wooden variations of the dancers and a monumental sculpture of a head whose likeness is that of the artist. Inscribed on the walls in Dine's distinctive handwriting will be a poem created in response to the ancient figures and their rebirth in the artist's own work. Altogether, the multimedia installation marks an exciting new step in Dine's on-going "romance" with ancient art. The process Dine used to create the sculptures in this exhibition is almost as fascinating as the works themselves. He began with detailed three-dimensional scans of the terracotta dancers in the Getty's collection. These scans were then used to write programs for a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine located at the Walla Walla Foundry in Walla Walla, Washington. By manipulating the computer programs, Dine and his colleagues at the Foundry had the CNC machine carve large-scale versions of the original figures out of wood with whatever changes in form the artist desired. Once the figures were carved, they were then moved to Dine's nearby studio warehouse and finished using tools such as rasps, power sanders, and knives, as well as a thick acrylic paint that provides their final, colorful surface. Dine's sculptural process will be featured in a new video, which will be available in the Getty Guide Room, in the Museum Theater, and on the web.  Born in Ohio in 1935, Dine grew up working at a family-owned hardware store. Upon moving to New York in 1959, he immediately became part of the avant-garde art scene. At the time, many other artists responded to the broader culture with deadpan popular imagery; meanwhile, Dine created a unique style, electing to combine elements from popular culture with personal content. Using this as a guiding principle, he then selected images to represent both his inner self and his artistic persona. Eventually these images, including hearts, skulls, clothing, and tools, reached iconic status in his art, for they became blatantly self-referential. The Jim Dine video was made possible through the generous support of the J. Paul Getty Museum's Villa Council.Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets) is curated by Rainer Mack, manager of education for the Getty Museum. In addition, Dine’s work is in numerous public collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Cleveland Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone-machi, Japan; the Hirshhorn Museum and Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; the Israel Museum, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that features the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades. Visit : www.getty.edu Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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