I went to see Jim Dine’s print show at the CUNY Graduate Center last night - it’s unusual to find much happening in the Art World on a Monday night, and I was unexpectedly happy with being present and seeing Jim Dine, who I decided not to speak to, at his own opening.  I spoke with Jim Dine at his last opening and I didn’t want him to remember me, to be honest, since I kinda expressed my dislike of his The Adventures of Pinocchio: Story of a Puppet series (which really makes no sense to me).

Fortunately for me, Jim had other prints that were not about Pinocchio that were much better for me, as artistic statements.  I think when Jim Dine deals with plants, flowerpots, hearts and even his own robes, he’s much better, in terms of what he’s actually conveying than when he goes after the puppets.

And I’m sorry, I just have to say that ….. most people that I noticed at the gallery last night, if I could read their minds (which I can’t) seem to be snickering at the Pinocchio work.   What made it worse for me last time, in May, was that Jim Dine was dressed with suspenders and short pants that made him look like a puppetmaster…. and that made it even harder to appreciate the work he was displaying…because for me, Pinocchio is really a Disney Cartoon with Jimmy Cricket - not this deep story he wants to explore.

The question is this … if Pinocchio really is that deep a story, and I don’t doubt that it is…. how can Jim Dine express that, with out drawing a bunch of stick figures…how does he actually translate the pathos he says he feels over Pinocchio in a way that other people feel it.   

It’s the same kind of problem as taking a song that everyone knows has been sung by Elvis, or someone else well known, and singing it - you can’t easily disambiguate what you remember in your memory of the song with the song your hearing now, as it’s sung.   By picking Pinocchio, and yet not really moving past the illustrative aspects of the story, Jim Dine might be getting off on the story, but he hasn’t really succeeded in changing anyone else’s perception of Pinocchio…had he done that, he would, indeed, be the greater artist - be he fails here - and I’m pretty sure that’s how people will look at this Pinocchio series, 50 years from now (if any of this is around then…).

The rest of the prints were pretty darn good - not great though.   Why?  It’s probably due to Jim Dine’s presentation - it’s too “literal” - he just takes a bunch of plants for flowers and thinks because he can jazz up the textures and hype the colors, that’s going to do it.   Nevertheless, I enjoyed just about everything he’s done, except the Pinocchio work and the show is worth seeing.