BELGIUM: International launch of acclaimed pop artist Jim Dine's illustrations of Pinocchio gives deep insight into life's work

One of the pioneers of pop art, American Jim Dine, inaugurated his latest art work in a Brussels bookshop on Friday (November 10): bold, stark and powerful illustrations of the tale of Pinocchio. Pinocchio was a wooden puppet carved by Geppetto and turned into a living doll by a fairy following his maker's wish for a son. Pinocchio travelled through dangerous and magical adventures and every time he lied his nose would grow longer and he would be punished. "I wanted this page, this opening page to be just a picture of the boy, no text. And then the book moves then to a wood cut that I cut, (reads the page) 'a piece of wood that laughed and cried like a child', that's the beginning of the book," Dine says. Dine says Carlo Collodi's classic tale spoke to him strongly as a child and continued to live on in his psyche and his artist's work for 64 years. Dine is 71 and first met Pinocchio when he was 6. He says he had made lithographs and sculptures of the young boy with a long nose, lederhosen and a pointed hat for years and that he has been part of own iconography like the hearts or robes or venus figures he has reproduced throughout his artist's life. In other words Pinocchio is another part of his "glossary of terms" "When I was 6 years old I saw the Disney movie and when you are a boy, you are 6 years old, you see this movie that's so frightening you don't forget it," Dine says. Dine's drawings and lithographs are not for the faint hearted and they are far from the Disney cartoon he first saw. Pinocchio is a bad boy, a puppet who rebels against his apprenticeship in human life and Dine's vision of him is drawn more out of the stark Italian original than the soft American version whilst the pop artist's inimitable stamp of exaggerated lines and tones lends itself beautifully to depicting a brash, misguided and vain boy-doll. "I never forgot the story and I kept it in my back pocket. About 1964 I found a doll, this big, put out by Disney, at the time of the movie in 1941. It was papier mache with beautiful real clothes. I kept it, it talked to me. And I kept it on my bookshelf till the middle 90s when it must have grabbed me by the back of the neck," Dine says. Dine says that for him Pinocchio is the story of a boy who is afraid, who fights against fear and fights to be born. His creator Geppetto goes through the ordeal with him as he tries to mould the would be son who strikes off on his own. Dine says his own artistic life is one of struggle and that all creation comes out of some form of confrontation and pain. And that's why his boyhood attraction to Pinocchio turned into a more complex identification with the character's maker in his adult life. "At first it was the boy's story that got me but I realised that the story itself is a kind of metaphor for art about how you make art. So I went to identifying with Pinocchio to growing up and facing the fact that I was Geppetto, the father, and I've given birth to the boy, my way (is that why Geppetto looks a bit like you?) I hope more than a little bit! It is me!" Dine says. In the booklet that accompanies this international launch of Jim Dine's illustrated book the acclaimed pop artist says Collodi's ability to to hold the metaphor in limitless ways has made his drawings paintings and sculptures of him richer by far. His poor burned feet, his vanity about his large nose, his temporary donkey ears "all add up to the real sums of his parts" But in the end it is his heart that holds him. "The book is for the boy" he is quoted as saying. The bookshop owner Bertrand Niaudet says the works have been very well received by the public. Julian Moran, a Belgian artist who came to see the work was struck by the power of the pictures. "With regards to the contrast, the choice of colours, composition, you can tell he knows what he's doing. I think its strong work, it speaks for itself," Moran says. Dine began as an artist in New York in 1959 when he staged his first "happenings". In the early 1960s he created 'assemblages' in which he frequently affixed everyday objects such as ropes, shoes, neckties, items of clothing and other personal possessions to his canvases. He created a now famous repertoire of hearts, palettes, goddesses and empty bathrobes. Dine is known for his obsessive repetition of the same subjects. He finds that printmaking allows instant re-invention and numerous possible combinations of techniques and formats. He mixes wood cut, lithography, drypoint and etching. The Pinocchio works of woodcut and lithography some with added hand colouring were produced over 3 years in the Paris atelier of Michael Woolworth. Dine spends 6 months of the year in Paris which he says he finds very relaxing - an important detail when you are such a prolific artist fighting with your own internal struggle. "After all Pinocchio started as a stick that talked and Geppetto carved him and he went through a lot of trials and, the puppet, went through a lot of trials and a lot of stuff to go through to finally emerge as a human, as a boy, which is what happens when you make art," Dine says. the book was produced by the renowned German publishing house Steidl specialising in art and photography. "It ends well there is the chapter of finding Geppetto in the body of the dogfish and then he is 'dear papa' and then Pinocchio, the puppet, becoming the boy, spelled out in bright colours, expressing the joy, becoming the boy," Dine says as he closes the book. A Bronze sculpture of Pinocchio takes centre place in the bookshop exhibiting Dine's work as proudly as Pinocchio would have done. Dine plans to build a large scale model of about 10 metres height destined for the Swedish town of Bozas - a giant testament to Dine's creative powers.

ITN Source | November 11, 2006

Tags:. .illustrated. .empty. .afraid. .dear. .accompanies