Jim Dine: French, English, A Day Longer

Those lucky enough to visit one of Jim Dine’s studios will find their walls not only splattered with pigment from his many paintings but covered with his poems, drawn in his unmistakable handwriting. Dine has been writing poems for decades and French, English, A Day Longer, including dozens of documentary photos and two DVDs of his poetry recitals, is a privileged insight into this crucial aspect of his studio practice. Written with charcoal and ink, smudged and re-worked with brushes, sponges, rags and fingers, Dine’s poems are constantly re-imagined, dense with layers of memory: the wall becomes the work. Dine often collaborates with his assistants on these creations, each moving throughout the studio, writing in both English and French, erasing, correcting and provoking, as in a dance, only to be concluded with the decisive sweep of Dine’s left hand.

I became a collector of words. That is I remember things I heard. My method of writing is not too different than my method of painting. I collect imagery and put it together and take it apart. It’s a collage method. - Jim Dine Co-published with Joca Seria, Nantes