Chasing Scale and Color

Choir of Poems is the latest proof of Jim Dine's irrepressible commitment to making art beyond artistic labels. Presenting paintings, drawings, sculptures-as well as compelling hybrid forms-this book shows Dine's passion for eclectic materiality while exploring his inner landscapes. As much as he is dedicated to the now-the moment of creation, of process-Dine's work today is often a dialogue with the past. Take for example the three works central to Choir of Poems, each a conversation with a different, dear person from Dine's past, loved ones now gone. Chairs stand before these expansive paintings as integrated sculptural elements, while metal pipes spring from the paint's relief-like surface (itself rejecting mere two-dimensionality)-creating a new imposing form of painting-sculpture. Confessional texts in Dine's unmistakable sprawling hand give insight into these works as well as other inventive series like "49 Views on the North Crescent," based on accident. Here Dine spontaneously drew plants and tools onto aluminum printing plates he had already prepared for lithographs; while a monumental bronze sculpture of a hammer deepens his ongoing fascination with tools: their forms, their materials, and the imagination they unlock within the artist. Seen together, Dine's choir is a vast self-portrait composed of individual voices, each an expression of his endlessly curious mind, hands and heart.

These poems address the past and the now. For me, that's about it… - Jim Dine <BR><BR> Few contemporary artists can demonstrate an œuvre as varied, consistent and influential as that of Jim Dine—incorporating painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and photography, and sweeping across more than six decades. Fewer still can say they are respected poets. Dine has been writing and performing intensely autobiographical poems since the late 1960s, and With Fragile Spirit is his latest collection, consisting of five volumes. These differ greatly and include "A Beautiful Day," exploring Dine's polarities of experience from delight to melancholy, from disillusion to celebration; and "Like the Big Boy Tomato," a hand-written version of his 2021 hate poem "Electrolyte in Blue," probing themes of anti-Semitism, racism, climate change and failed world leaders. Together, these books affirm poetry as the unceasing critical flow that augments and energizes his visual work.