04 - A CLOSER LOOK: GERHARD STEIDL
The countdown to Venice starts now.
DOG ON THE FORGE is an ambitious survey exhibition of never-before-seen work from American artist, Jim Dine.
Curated by Gerhard Steidl, Founding Director of Kunsthaus Göttingen, the exhibition draws inspiration from Dine’s relentless odysseys between the United States and Europe, as well as his lifetime dedication to the concept of visual, cultural, and linguistic hybridization.
The corresponding catalogue, Dog on the Forge, will be published by Editions Steidl with text by Steidl.
Read on to learn more about the formidable force that is Gerhard Steidl.
Gerhard Steidl and Jim Dine. Photograph: Daniel Clarke
Dine & Steidl
Steidl defines his work with Dine not as a collaboration, but as a dialogue—one in which each of them needs to be capable of listening to the other, in an intimate, direct and quick-fire exchange.
Theirs is a collaboration between artist and publisher that has, since the first telephone call in 1999, resulted in thirty-seven publications (and counting).
To leaf through the books is to plunge into a profusion of images, encounters of all sorts, dreams, fantasies, things faithfully catalogued, new techniques, pioneering experiments, personal tributes and memories.
Dog on the Forge, therefore, presents a new exploration for the pair—that of the plastic, the physical, and corporeal.
This time, their collaboration bounds off the pages and into a 14th-century Italian palazzo.
Gerhard Steidl, Photograph by Mark Peckmezian for The New Yorker
“…I was impressed with him—his intensity.”
— Jim Dine on Gerhard Steidl
Photograph: Robbie Lawrence for Wall Street Journal Magazine.
Steidl’s printing is an art form, his fastidiousness is renowned, and he takes enormous pride in mastering every minute detail of the bookmaking process
Profiling the legendary Steidl for The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead writes, “Among photographers and photography aficionados, Steidl’s name recognition equals that of Johannes Gutenberg: he is widely regarded as the best printer in the world.
His name appears on the spine of more than two hundred photography books a year, and he oversees the production of all of them personally.
Steidl is known for fanatical attention to detail, for superlative craftsmanship, and for embracing the best that technology has to offer.
He seeks out the best inks, and pioneers new techniques for achieving exquisite reproductions. ‘He is so much better than anyone,’ William Eggleston, the American color photographer, told me, when I met him recently in New York. Steidl has published Eggleston for a decade; two years ago, he produced an expanded, ten-volume, boxed edition of The Democratic Forest, the artist’s monumental 1989 work. Eggleston passed his hand through the air, in a stroking gesture. ‘Feel the pages of the books,’ he said. ‘The ink is in relief. It is that thick.’”
A 2010 illustration by Karl Lagerfeld celebrating Gerhard Steidl.
The Books
Every Steidl book distinguishes itself through individual design and production values. Known for his passion for paper, Steidl personally selects the paper and binding materials for each title and oversees all aspects of the production process – each Steidl book literally passes through his hands. In the course of his career, Steidl has worked on over 4,000 books.
House of Words, Jim Dine: Poet Singing, the Flowering Sheets, Kunsthaus Göttingen
The Kunsthaus
Kunsthaus Göttingen is an exhibition space for works on paper, photography and new media, which opened in June 2021. The exhibitions focus on contemporary art with an international orientation. In the curatorial planning, the focus is on close cooperation with the artists themselves, who not only get a stage for their work, but also the opportunity for new productions, collaborations and interactive projects.
Each year four large exhibitions are planned as extensive solo or group exhibitions, which are shown on three levels in the spacious gallery spaces in the Kunsthaus. Between larger exhibitions, short in between exhibitions are continuously shown in which selected artists can try out the forms of presentation for their work.
The relationship between Steidl and Dine has also given birth to dedicated pavilions in Göttingen, Germany; House of Words and Stardust House. These two monumental groups of sculpture combine the many facets of Dine’s oeuvre and Steidl’s acute sense of architecture and scenography, bringing together poetry and large-scale ceramic pots with bronze appliqué.
Through his many years of initiative in the realization of the museum and through his honorary work as founding director in the initial phase, Steidl is closely connected to the Kunsthaus, and cooperative projects are also conceived for the future. Steidl runs the internationally active Steidl Verlag publishing house near the Kunsthaus Göttingen. As early as 1969, he printed posters and multiples by artists such as Joseph Beuys and Klaus Staeck, and today publishes selected art and photography volumes, literature and political non-fiction. In addition to making books, Steidl conceives and curates exhibitions worldwide.
About Gerhard Steidl
Photograph by Mark Peckmezian for The New Yorker
Gerhard Steidl is a German printer and publisher. He was born in 1950 in Göttingen, Germany. Steidl developed an interest in the technical aspects of printing from an early age and his impetus for a career in printing came when, as a teenager, one of his photographs was used in a poster advertising a production of Brecht's Mann ist Mann.
In the late 1960s, Steidl established Steidl Verlag in Göttingen. Gerhard Steidl, together with Klaus Staeck worked very closely with Joseph Beuys until his death in 1986. At this point Steidl began to concentrate on publishing photography books. In 1993 he won the Lucky Strike award. He published Karl Lagerfeld and with him began a 26 year long collaboration. In 1998 Steidl met Jim Dine in Paris and since have collaborated on over 37 book projects, ranging from conceptual books like, The Goofy Life of Constant Mourning & Viral Interest, to his latest catalog raisonné of prints, I Print 2001-2020, and recently, Three Ships, which accompanied his exhibition by the same name last September at TEMPLON New York.
In 2020, Gerhard Steidl received the Gutenberg Prize of the International Gutenberg Society and the City of Mainz. Then in 2021, Steidl inaugurated a thirty-year-old dream of opening a Kunsthaus in Göttingen. As its Founding Director, Steidl has curated exhibitions of Roni Horn, William Kentridge, Documenta 17 and Jim Dine’s Storm of Memory. It is for this reason that Kunsthaus Göttingen and Gerhard Steidl were a natural choice to organize Dog on the Forge, the latest opus by Jim Dine, curated by Gerhard Steidl.
Jim Dine
In the News
Front: Jim Dine, The Studio (Landscape Painting), 1963, oil on canvas with wooden shelf and painted glass, tin, ceramic, and wood. 61" × 108-1/2" × 10-3/4"; Back (left to right): Five Silver Ties, 1962, oil, aluminum paint and neckties on canvas 43-1/2” x 24”, 4 1/4 Palettes with Mirrors, 1963, oil, charcoal and mirror on canvas, 35-1/2" × 93" × 3"; Installation view, "Jim Dine: The '60s," March 15 - April 20, 2024. 125 Newbury, New York. Photo: Peter Clough
Pop Art Pioneer Jim Dine’s New Show Hearkens Back to His Origins as an Innovator
Dine expresses his fascination with the tensions between abstraction, two-dimensional representation, and the presence of things.
by David Hiroshi Jager, Thursday, March 14, 2024, The Sun, New York
From left: Jim Dine, Things in Their Natural Setting (First Version),1973, acrylic on canvas with objects, 71-5/8 x 59-7/8 x 16″ (181.9 x 152.1 x 40.6 cm); Four Rooms, 1962, oil on canvas with objects, 72" x 15' x 41"; Installation view, "Jim Dine: The '60s," March 15 - April 20, 2024. 125 Newbury, New York. Photo: Peter Clough
A pioneer of pop art and one of the early instigators in the “Happening” movement, Jim Dine, is probably best known for his “heart” series. Once as ubiquitous as Keith Haring’s dancing figures, they have perhaps misdirected attention away from a 60-year career rich with other pioneering work. Mr. Dine, who by his own admission is compulsively productive, has been especially prolific since the pandemic, churning out drawing, painting, and even monumental sculpture.
His new show at 125 Newbury, however, hearkens back to his origins as an innovator in both the “Happenings” and Pop Art movements. Featuring more than a dozen paintings, sculptures, and works on paper produced between 1959 and 1973, they also show how his preoccupations have remained remarkably consistent.
Most Anticipated Venice Exhibitions: Arne Quinze and Swizz Beatz, Berlinde De Bruyckere, and More
This year’s much-anticipated La Biennale di Venezia brings a spirited display of awe-inspiring artworks, installations, and films which weave a relatable tale of life’s fragility and the heavenly, celestial wonders which enrapture us all. International visionaries such as Arne Quinze and Swizz Beatz, Jim Dine, and Pierre Huyghe are placed in dialogue with each other as well as the majesty of Venice’s historic churches, monuments, and sanctuaries.
by Erica Silverman, Whitewall, 23 March 2024
In advance of your journey through the extraordinary 60th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, on view from April 20 through November 24, 2024, be sure to make time for these transformative Venice exhibitions by a global array of luminaries including Elias Sime, Ewa Juszkiewicz, Berlinde De Bruyckere, and more.
Jim Dine’s “Dog on the Forge” at Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù
April 20 – July 21, 2024
Jim Dine, “Liar (2nd version),” 2007, enamel and charcoal on wood, 70 7/8 x 51, 1 x 22 in., photo by Laurent Edeline, courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris/Brussels/New York.
Curated by Gerhard Steidl, Founding Director of Kunsthaus Göttingen, distinguished American artist Jim Dine unveils an enthralling survey exhibition of his multifaceted oeuvre with works from the 1980s through to the present. The deft poet, painter, and sculptor brings 32 new artworks to the idyllic Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù, including a site specific open-air installation uniting vast bronze sculptures, which elegantly looks over the Grand Canal.
“My whole life, I’ve been in motion,” explained Dine. “I find it difficult to sit still. It’s a hyperactive quality, I would say. I’ve always enjoyed going from studio to studio, country to country. For me, traveling is like using red. It’s another thing to make the picture.” Unfolding over two floors of the Palazzo, colorful drawings, paintings, and sculptures bring forth the artist’s signature codes of self-portraiture and heart shapes, alongside charismatic figures of Pinocchio and Venus. In reference to his engrossing paintings, the artist stated, “I’m not interested in making them pretty. I’m interested in carving out images that will move you.”
A presto!
JIM DINE
DOG ON THE FORGE
20 April — 21 July 2024
La Biennale di Venezia
Organizing Institution: Kunsthaus Göttingen, Germany
Supported by TEMPLON
