A170921093254 005

turning pages in the book of love

Jim Hodges

Dates
28.11.2017 | 17.03.2018
Gallery
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Massimo De Carlo is pleased to present turning pages in the book of love, the first exhibition by the artist Jim Hodges with our gallery, conceived and created for the historically significant Palazzo Belgioioso in Milan.

Upon entering the exhibition, the viewer encounters a subtle atmosphere of light and shadows. A room within a room hosts a cabinet made of wood and its multiple skins of lacquer, gold, and silk, housing an object made of light and glass. In the second room a sculpture of two interlaced arms made in white Michelangelo marble lay upon a rock made of black Colonnata marble as they hold a rose made of gold. Behind the marble sculpture is a large scale diptych, that is part of one of Jim Hodges’ new series of paintings created with glitter and other mediums, evokes the artist’s interest in the process of creating through gesture and immediacy. In the 18th century antique library reading room of Palazzo Belgioioso, the viewer encounters a precious object held by two intertwined hands - solemn and charmed, immersed in a red velvet tent. In the garden of the palazzo, used for an exhibition for the first time, the artist has positioned a transformed root of a giant redwood into a deconstructed gilded bronze sculpture.

Since the late 1980’s Jim Hodges has employed a broad range of everyday and precious materials to create works that transform the quotidian object into a site where the personal, political, and universal merge through simple gesture and poetic command. Taking up varied modes of process and production, Hodges' practice resists the definitional aims of discourse, instead offering multilayered works that evoke resonant themes such as identity and mortality. Glitter, bronze, fabric, gold, marble, glass and other materials have become part of the construction of a narrative on fragility, ephemerality, love and loss.

turning pages in the book of love is Jim Hodges’ first exhibition in Milan.

The Artist

Learn more
Jim Hodges

Jim Hodges was born in 1957 in Spokane Washington; lives and works between Milan and New York.


Known for his profound ability to infuse emotions and narratives into everyday objects, Hodges crafts poignant and delicate artworks centred around temporality, life, and love. Drawing inspiration from nature and its lexicon, his artistic practice spans from the initial delicate wall sculptures to expansive depictions of flourishing trees, as well as the incorporation of golden leaves and mirrored mosaics in the 2000s. Hodges transforms humble and simple materials through his artistic touch, uniting drawing and sculpture in the process. These acts of delicate transformation serve as evocative memories of desire and loss, contributing to the construction of a new identity.


Hodges’s work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Miami Art Museum; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C; Walker Art Centre, Minnesota and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

2018 Jim in Ireland by Tim Hailand highres