Another of those names that echo down the decades as a mainstay of modern art…uttered in the same breath as the likes of Warhol and Lichtenstein. The Albertina brings us a Jim Dine exhibition in another turn-of-the-year treat.
- Highlights from the in-house collection
- Self-portraits also feature prominently
- Runs Nov 8, 2024 – Mar 23, 2025
- Book Albertina tickets* in advance
- See also:
Dine & donations
(Jim Dine, Asleep with his Tools Jim Dreams, 2018; ALBERTINA, Wien, © Bildrecht, Vienna 2024)
Name the great museums of modern and contemporary art, and Dine’s works will likely be inside. The US artist began in the 1950s and hasn’t stopped; if you’d popped into a Venetian palazzo last summer, you’d have found new works he created for a collateral event at the 2024 Biennale.
The Jim Dine exhibition in Vienna draws on the Albertina’s own significant collection of his works, particularly the 230 self-portraits Dine donated to the museum.
These works allow the viewer to engage with Dine’s personal and artistic development through time.
You have, for example, the technical perspective in terms of the media, materials, printing processes and printmaking techniques used.
You have the creativity and characteristic motifs.
And you have the self-portrait (in the widest sense of the concept) as self-representation, where the artist’s feelings take form in objects like tools, hearts and bathrobes.
That last aspect, in particular, echoes Dine’s own interest in self-portraiture. In one interview, he noted:
I have been drawing and painting myself for decades, it has always been a study of me and my unconscious.
(Jim Dine, A Heart At The Opera, 1983, 130 x 95 cm, print on paper, the ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna © Bildrecht, Vienna 2024)
And when asked in another discussion whether he still needed to look at himself, Dine answered:
I never stop looking. I never stop examining. I never stop inventing from what I see.
The Albertina’s exhibition bring us the results of that undiminished self-reflection, curiosity and interpretive drive.
At a banal personal level, I always enjoy modern woodcuts, etchings etc. as a counterpoint to their close association with renaissance greats like Dürer.
Strangely, though, the sole sculpture in the exhibition caught my particular eye: a hewn personification (?) of The Sea from 1994.
The 1995 series of four self-portrait etchings (in the classical sense of a head portrait) formed another personal highlight. They felt like a shimmering MRI revealing slices of a character. I found myself wondering what you might discover by conceptually layering them on top of each other.
Dates, tickets & tips
Enjoy the delights of Dine from November 8th, 2024 to March 23rd, 2025. An entrance ticket for or from the Albertina includes the special exhibitions.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
The Albertina has some other exceptional treats for us, too.
For example, a Marc Chagall retrospective continues through much of the same period (until February 9th). And towards the end of the Dine exhibition (from March 7th), travel back in time to admire the skills of the drawing greats of the Renaissance in the Leonardo – Dürer exhibition.
Incidentally, if any of the printmaking terms used in the Dine or drawing exhibitions confuse you, I feel your pain. That’s why I wrote this simple guide.
How to get there
Check the main Albertina overview article for travel tips. But it’s right in the centre and opposite the rear of the state opera house…a short walk from tram and subway stops.
The Dine exhibition is on the top floor where you also find the permanent exhibition.
Address: Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Vienna