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Contact: Kathleen Flynn, 212-226-0573 or kflynn@dieudonne.org
Jim Hodges
New Work
June 3 – July 31, 2010
Opening reception Thursday, June 3
May 6, 2010, New York, NY. Dieu Donné announces the opening of an exhibition of new works in handmade paper by artist Jim Hodges, beginning Thursday, June 3, 2010 and running through Saturday, July 17, 2010. The opening reception will take place on Thursday, June 3, 2010 from 6–8 pm and the artist will be present.
Hodges is widely known for his investi- gations into materiality and painstaking shaping of materials, both everyday and exotic. In this exhibition, he submits to a material that has often captured his attention – paper. Hodges’s return to Dieu Donné is his first since his 2002 Lab Grant residency, which was the artist’s introduction to hand papermaking, during which he created drawings from richly colored paper pulp. In this recent body of work, Hodges exploits the material qualities of paper through sculpture. By cutting and folding handmade paper sheets, Hodges exposes the organic elements of the richly seductive watermarked paper. In Creep, 2009, the artist reveals a branch like form which projects from the surface of the paper.
In addition to working with the finished paper sheets, Hodges also sculpted pulp in the wet process, which allowed him to "access the paper in its unborn state." By pulling out pieces of wet pulp by hand and applying lines with pigmented pulp, Hodges revisits his practice of reduction and addition in an entirely new way. The resulting works illustrate both beauty and decay, and through this manipulation of paper in its most raw state the artist achieves haunting and emotive results.
About the artist: Jim Hodges (b. 1957, Spokane, Washington) lives and works in New York City. This exhibition at Dieu Donné follows the artist’s October 2009 solo exhibition "Love, Etc," at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which traveled to the Fondazione Bevilacqua in Venice, and will be at the Camden Arts Center in London in June of 2010. The artist is represented by Barbara Gladstone Gallery, who presented his recent work in Brussels in March 2010. Hodges work is featured in permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Guggenheim Museu, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. and the Tate in London, among others.
About Dieu Donné: Founded in 1976, Dieu Donné is a non-profit artist workspace dedicated to the creation, promotion, and preservation of contemporary art in the hand papermaking process. In support of this mission, Dieu Donné collaborates with artists and partners with the professional visual arts community.
Top right: Creep, 2009, beva adhesive and cut handmade paper. 60.25 × 40.125 × 7.5 inches.
The artistic and educational programs at Dieu Donné are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and foundation support including: Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Cowles Family Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mary Biddle Duke Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Joan K. Davidson (The J.M. Kaplan Fund), the Lauder Foundation, Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr., the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, StratREAL Foundation US, the Daniel M. Neidich and Brooke Garber Foundation, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., the Marden Family Foundation, Inc., the Renaissance Charitable Foundation (The Dresner Sadaka Family Fund), the New York Community Trust, Cashin Family Fund, Hurst Family Foundation, The Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, Inc., and individual donors.
