Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art, which has represented Jim Dine for nearly twenty years, has brought together a retrospective of the artist’s work spanning fifty years of his remarkable career. Beginning with the large collage-painting on paper, Untitled (Gossip) (1970-71), and ending with the monumental, hand-painted, five-panel woodcut, Asleep with his Tools, Jim Dreams (2018), this Jim Dine exhibition features notable examples of the artist’s well-known motifs: hearts, robes, tools, and the 2nd-century-BCE masterpiece, Venus de Milo, which is in the collection of the Louvre. It also underscores Dine’s capacity to make works that do not fit neatly into art historical categories, such as collage and painting.
An instrumental and innovative artist, Dine has had at least five careers since he and Claes Oldenburg started Judson Gallery in 1959. This endeavor helped move the art world away from Abstract Expressionism and initiated a new era.