“Everything I’ve ever done, everything I continue to do, it all comes down to fire. I’ve spent 60 years feeding the flame, trying to make sure it doesn’t die down,” explains American Pop Art artist and Happenings pioneer Jim Dine on the eve of his 80th birthday. The prolific artist has enjoyed a career of commercially and critically successful works, even generating controversy over humorous drawings of genitalia and pubic hair in the 1960s.Today, Dine’s aesthetic takes a new turn with his latest exhibition “City of Glass” at Galerie Daniel Templon Paris.Using a work bench base, he builds upon it a scaled city of sculptures made from bronze, glass, paint, hand tools, along with a number of rare found objects, most in brightly colored iterations. Some of the tools and glass give the appearance of melting or disfigured objects, which Dine moulded himself using heat.The sculptures suggest an artist’s studio or mad scientist’s collection of peculiarities. Dine describes the inclusion of blown glass as a way to “sculpt with light,” his first use of the art form. The resulting sculptures along with a series of large drawings, which are reminiscent of the sculptures and tools, are the resulting work of two-and-a-half years’ time.“City of Glass” quite literally shows the importance of tools and process as part of the finished work.Jim Dine’s “City of Glass” will be on view from June 6-July 24.
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