Excerpts from a conversation between Becherer and Dine follow. The material is reproduced with permission from “Jim Dine — Night Fields, Day Fields — The Sculpture,” Steidl, Gottingen, Germany, 2011. J.B.: I would like to start out with this idea: You are an internationally celebrated figure in the art world from paintings and prints, and, more recently, photographs, but arguably your sculptures are a less well known, less studied aspect of your repertoire. What do you see is the relationship between the two-dimensional work and the three-dimensional work, and what do you see as the boundaries?
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J.D.: My sculpture is exactly what my painting is. For me, it is all about the same thing. Many times, my painting has incorporated real objects, so you could say it became a kind of bas-relief and that I’ve always made “sculpture.” … Two early pieces, “Untitled: After Winged Victory” (1959) and “The Green Suit” (1959), are constructed of temporary material — cloth for both of them. That’s all I could do financially in those years. It was difficult because sculpture is expensive — bronze particularly. But, as I am an object maker, it becomes a question of does the object differ in the round from one that exists
on a two-dimensional surface? Physically, they are different, but I do not think they are different in intent, just in perception. Sculpture’s many-sided physicalness, I’m sure, affects the viewer. J.B.: Do you approach the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional work, or working in the round, differently?
J.D.: I am a “hands-on” artist in the act of making work. So I approach them both in the same way. No, that’s not exactly true. With sculpture, I do have assistants, not just because I am an old guy, and am impatient, but as with my printing, I don’t have the