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PULLMAN – Jim Dine’s “Technicolor Heart” is leaving us for another – the wealthier, flashier Fredrik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Mich. But WSU Museum of Art Director
Chris Bruce said he’s been assured the heart will be back in the center of campus by August 2011.
Chris Bruce said he’s been assured the heart will be back in the center of campus by August 2011.
Discussions about the loan started almost a year ago, Bruce said, but he didn’t find out until a week ago that the sculpture definitely would be leaving. The pickup is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 26.
Although the art work is part of WSU’s permanent collection, it is owned by the Washington State Arts Commission (WSAC), which purchased it in 2004 through the state-funded Art in Public Places program. The WSAC approved the loan, but the $20,000 transportation cost will be borne by Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Bruce said.
“Technicolor Heart” is scheduled to be part of a retrospective of Dine’s sculpture at Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park that opens January 2011. In watercolor, wood cut prints, bronze and mixed media, Dine has been charting his own path as an artist since 1962.
His work is exhibited in more than 60 museums, public galleries or sculpture parks around the world, from the Tate Gallery in London, to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. For Meijer Gardens to request “Technicolor Heart” is a tribute to the importance of the piece, Bruce said.
Typically only an artist’s most important work is borrowed for a retrospective, he said, “so we feel lucky to have such a signature work by such an important international artist.”
In a June 2010 interview with Ilka Skobie at artnet.com, Dine responds to a question about how many hearts he has made. “Millions?” she asks. “I have no idea,” Dine says, “but it’s mine and I use it as a template for all my emotions. It’s a landscape for everything.”
Dine, who recently spent a month working in India, compared the hearts to Indian classical music -“based on something very simple, but building to a complicated structure. Within that, you can do anything. And that’s how I feel about my hearts.”
The abruptness of the departure made it difficult to plan a formal sendoff, said
Anna Maria Shannon, assistant director of the WSU museum. Friends of the heart are welcome to watch the work crew un-install and load the 2,800-pound sculpture – with the help of a crane – for its trip back to the Walla Walla Foundry where it was made. From there it will be repacked for the long trek to central Michigan.
Anna Maria Shannon, assistant director of the WSU museum. Friends of the heart are welcome to watch the work crew un-install and load the 2,800-pound sculpture – with the help of a crane – for its trip back to the Walla Walla Foundry where it was made. From there it will be repacked for the long trek to central Michigan.
First installed at WSU in 2004, “Technicolor Heart” immediately provoked ardent supporters and detractors. In its first year perched on a grassy knoll near the intersection of Stadium Way and Grimes Way, the sculpture was covered with garbage bags, wrapped with a tarp and padlocked, anonymously listed for sale on E-bay, railed against in the Daily Evergreen student newspaper and spray painted with a one-word challenge: Art?
The Big Blue Heart, as it is colloquially known, still has some critics, Bruce said, but for the most part the heart is now an accepted part of the WSU landscape.
But it still provokes feelings. About 70 people belong to the “I love/hate The Blue Heart” Facebook page, and postings on the wall reflect both points of view. Just this week, Katy Harrison wrote: “I personally think it’s really tacky.” A week earlier, Liz Domreis wrote that she adores the heart, in part because it provokes such strong emotions.
Lolly Owens wrote that, for her, the heart “symbolized a campus that encouraged people to think outside the box.” She said she loves the heart for opening up conversations about what is art.
And that’s followed by the comment from Michael Pineapple Gordon: “I have never liked the thing. It definitely doesn’t speak to me.” Gordon said he likes the sculpture of the veterinarian with the child and calf that’s across the street.