New Work New Dimensions
Jim Dine Arrives in Hofheim
We’re pleased to announce, Jim Dine: Chasing Scale and Color, which opens June 12, 2025 at the Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus in Germany. Included in this newsletter are personal insights from Jim about his two newest works.
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This exhibition marks another collaboration between Jim and the German publisher, Gerhard Steidl. After their experience of Venice, Gerhard invited Jim to create a show addressing new work born from the paintings shown at the Palazzo Rocca last year during the Venice Biennale. This intimate exhibition will be highlighted by two formidable new works, Remembering Ann Arensberg and Clarence, burning leaves, both dated 2024-2025.
In Jim’s words, these paintings are dedicated to specific personal relationships of the past and are constructed with a vast super thick surfaced relief that includes cast bronze objects and are held together by 1/2 inch galvanized pipe. These two paintings will be shown with recent bronze sculptures and paintings.
A limited-edition catalogue will be available through Steidl Verlag.
Jim Dine: Chasing Scale and Color
12 June – 28 September 2025
Hofheim City Museum
Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus
Burgstraße 11, 65719 Hofheim am Taunus
stadtmuseum.hofheim.de
Special Event: Gerhard Steidl and Jim Dine in Dialogue
4 September 2025 at 7:30 PM
Longtime collaborators Jim Dine and publisher Gerhard Steidl reflect on their 20+ year friendship, over 38 book projects, and numerous exhibitions.
4 September 2025 at 7:30 PM
Admission: €12
Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus
Burgstraße 11, 65719 Hofheim am Taunus
stadtmuseum.hofheim.de
Jim Dine, Other poem, 2017, acrylic and sand on linen, 150 x 150 cm
Jim Dine, Clarence, burning leaves, mixed media on panel, (bronze, steel tubing, table, acrylic paint and found object), 224 x 417 cm
“My dear cousin, Clarence, who if he was alive today would be 125 years old, was a mathematician and a potter and the friend and savior of my 16 years old self who wanted to be a painter, artist at al. He was my mother’s cousin and when I knew him he had already worked on the Manhattan project and was a professor at our university in Cincinnati.
Clarence did something else too. At night, most nights actually he made pots, and jugs and pitchers of clay that he would give to the family if they married, or moved house, or just were favored by him and his big love for the clan. One humid summer evening his very old parents (who he lived with) were playing Bridge with friends and I was visiting him to look at and talk about his collection of Hokusai ukiyo-e. He said after we had a good conversation and I felt like I was learning a new way to speak, he said it’s time to burn leaves for the « leaf ash glaze ». When fallen tree leaves are dried and burnt they create a fine ash that can be used as an ingredient in pottery glaze. 3000 years ago in China, potters invented this glaze when the wood used to heat the kiln left a melted ash that created a glaze-like effect on the pot.
Clarence raked the leaves from the maple tree in his garden. He saved them in piles then systematically burned them to make the ingredient that would decorate and seal his pots. This particular summer Ohio night, I was introduced by the wizard to a piece of alchemy that moved my imagination away from the usual teenage hormonal obsessions to the cosmic possibilities found at random in the natural world.”
—Jim Dine
Jim Dine, Holly Hocks, 2022, patined bronze, 59 x 136 x 70 cm
Jim Dine, Remembering Ann Arensberg, 2024-2025, mixed media
“Ann Arensberg stays with me forever although we knew each other only in our late 30’s early 40’s. She was very fast on her wit and I loved her brains. She died of COVID in her late 80’s. Maybe 2-3 years ago. At my age, just 90, I have conversations continually with my past and with late friends. The conversations are a memory of one’s life, moment to moment. Each day’s memory of a person or big or sad event occupies my marginal thoughts as though they are brush strokes.
The painting dedicated to her memory is a vast, super thick surfaced, relief and includes cast bronze objects and is held together formally by 1/2 inch galvanized pipe. This pipe holds a whole other memory and I feel its material forever, for it’s the stuff of my childhood as a boy worker at the family’s plumbing supply.
Ann, who I remember with such pleasure and nostalgia would probably be flummoxed by the work in her name, as she was a literate woman of letters. I never spoke about painting with her but for a while we spoke with the energy of one who hides in the psychoanalyst’s closet while the Doctor is working on someone else’s brain and gets material for day to day conversation.”
—Jim DineJim Dine: Chasing Scale and ColoR
12 June – 28 September 2025
Hofheim City Museum
