Five Paintbrushes (third state) 1973

Curator: Well, if this isn't a symphony in monochrome! Jim Dine’s "Five Paintbrushes (third state)" from 1973 just oozes painterly introspection. An ink drawing, but rendered as a print. What strikes you first? Editor: That materiality, really. I am taken by how the work seems to monumentalize the most basic and unromanticized tools of artistic production. It calls into question these instruments of labor. Curator: Monumental is right! He takes these mundane objects—the very things most artists would stash away—and turns them into icons. They are also heavy with implication of action. But does the medium not create a deliberate flatness? It gives off the feel of aged documents, the look of blueprint, of archiving? Editor: Exactly, and the etching work makes each strand feel deliberately wrought, and yet rough. Dine is really exploring the space where utility meets the rarefied. I cannot help but think that if art can sanctify something, that it must have also made it, in a past life. Or is still currently at it. Curator: Oh, absolutely. Think about Dine’s long engagement with everyday objects—hearts, robes, tools. He’s turning the mirror back on art itself. To hold it up to these brushes. How do you give reverence and power to things taken for granted? Editor: These objects also, implicitly, make artmaking seem almost factory-made. No drama or flourish, but repetition, duplication, print. The gesture in the image is also repeatable outside the image, and in large batches, by workers and printers unknown. The print is one way to deal with that idea of reproduction. Curator: I love that tension—that balance of repetition and intention. Look at each brush; similar, yes, but uniquely marked, their bristles frayed differently. There's history in that variation! One cannot create outside material restraints and relationships; Dine almost revels in showing that here, no? Editor: Beautifully put! The print serves as a document and is still in motion. It is almost a social study. The tools speak even without the master. Thank you. Curator: A perfect ending! Thanks to you.