A Frog

During our visit to the Frederik Meijer Gardens, Aunt Cecile and I also had an opportunity to check out Jim Dine: Sculpture. Dine is an American artist whose work emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s during the Pop Art movement. He and contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstien challenged the art world by asserting that an artist’s use of modern materials, popular imagery and absurd contrast could stand side by side with traditional works.

Dine was admired for his paintings and graphic work, but his effort as a sculptor is less known. The retrospective exhibition at the Gardens is the first of its kind and traces the origins of his sculpture from rarely seen early work to his more current endeavors. Recurring iconic themes range from tools to Venus to the heart and, most recently, to Pinocchio.

Indeed, while we perused the exhibit, we noticed that Dine produced his pop art with items from everyday life: Hammers, hay, scrap metal, shoes, wood, and even an electric toothbrush! I love modern art, but this was some funky stuff.  Quite frankly, we didn’t really get it and wondered what in the heck he had been thinking … or smoking!

“He’s not Chihuly,” I remarked, which led to our more in-depth analysis. Some works of art speak to us while others don’t. You’ve got to kiss some frogs before you find a prince!  Nevertheless, while we won’t love or necessarily understand everything in the art world, we certainly can appreciate it.

Photography, of course, was not allowed in the sculpture gallery. I am, however, able to share the works of Dine which were displayed on the neighboring terrace and in the conservatory.

The Technicolor Heart (The Big One), 2004

Venus in Five Colors, 2007

But don’t let just these two pieces and comments from the peanut gallery sway your opinion one way or the other. The exhibit runs through May 8. Visit the Gardens and decide for yourself if Dine is a prince or a frog.