Jim Hodges is loved for his innate ability to infuse emotion and narrative into the objects of our daily lives. Mysterious, beautiful, poetic, and conceptually deep, Hodges's work centers experience as the primary objective and while thought-provoking, is always visually beautiful.
Jim Hodges’ art has merged the practices of drawing and sculpture since the 1980s. Many of those sculptures are forged from humble or found materials, transformed through his touch, conjuring both memory and imagination.
In keeping with his practice, a new Artspace and TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art edition, with you, 2024 presents multiple possibilities with two vessels—one of basalt stone, and one of cast glass—which can be suspended together in a handmade wooden pedestal, or enjoyed separately as a wall-mounted relief.
In itself an inclusive gesture, with you depends upon the participation of its owner: the artwork is complete when flowers are placed inside the objects. Every time the flowers are replaced, with you, 2024 is reactivated and resolved once again.
with you, 2024, comprises crystal, basalt and walnut. Crystal: 11” x 4.5” x 3.5” Basalt: variable dimensions.Walnut pedestal: 9 3/8“ x 8.5” x 15”. It is an edition of 22 + 2 APs, 2 PPs, 1 unsigned archival proof, and 1 unsigned exhibition proof. The work comes with a signed certificate of authenticity brochure and is $6,500.
with you, 2024 is presented in partnership with the 2024 TWO x TWO for AIDS Art Gala and Auction. Proceeds from the sale of the limited edition benefit the Dallas Museum of Art and amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Jim Hodges was the 2008 TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Honoree.
“The artwork is an invitation and an opportunity for connection,” Hodges tells Artspace. “It was conceived as a meditation and a celebration to honor the spectrum of beauty we share, and the possibilities relationships invite—with gratitude for all who’ve joined forces to generously impact lives in the most positive ways we can imagine.”
In January 2021, his installation I dreamed a world and called it Love, was unveiled at Grand Central Station, New York, USA. In June 2023, the sculpture Craig’s Closet, commissioned for the New York City AIDS Memorial Park, was unveiled.
His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at institutions including: the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Camden Art Centre, London; the Aspen Art Museum; CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Most recently a major traveling retrospective of Hodges’s work was exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Dallas Museum of Art; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Hodges has received multiple awards and grants including the Association International des Critiques d’art, the Albert Ucross Prize, Washington State Arts Commission, and the Penny McCall Foundation Grant.
The piece is cast glass and prepared basalt rock with a walnut stand. The objects are intended to be installed with flowers chosen by the owner. The gesture of installing and adding flowers is the completion of the work. The repeated gesture recreates the work every time it is activated with flowers. We asked Jim Hodges about the new edition and how it sits with his practice.
There is a dichotomy at the heart of this edition. To some degree there is impermanence – the flowers rot and die, yet the piece is reborn when one adds fresh flowers. This idea of renewal seems intrinsic to your practice going back to your early fax/ photocopier work. Could you let us into your thinking on this? "As a meditation on partnering and tending to the care of another, a ritual action came to mind. I wanted to invite others to experience the joy of making by offering a pair of empty vessels that await activation with water and flowers. And with the gesture of use complete the piece."
"The transient and ephemeral have been interests of mine and themes I’ve returned to especially when inquiring and contemplating love."
"Briefly, with you, 2024 was conceived as a reflection on the extraordinary collaboration that the fund raising event, TWO x TWO is and was for 25 years. Wanting to honor the partners and all of the participants who’ve over the years dedicated themselves to causes that benefit others."
The piece consists of cast glass, basalt rock and walnut. What do the properties of these materials signify to you in their base state, and how do you seek to change or modify this through your manipulation? "Regarding the materials I landed on for the piece, I wanted to combine tones of temporality and touch upon the range of fragilities and permanence. Contrasting, if you will, raw natural materials, basalt and wood, with cast crystal. These counters registering time in distinct ratios that speak through silence and resonate in a kind of harmony. Sorry for the poetics."
"Thinking in classical terms, sculpture has been made with these materials forever and harkening back to that incredible history to the most basic primitive gesture; stone, carved, stacked, scratched, painted etc, and wood together, draw threads toward that lengthy tremendous history that all art stems from."
"The cast crystal object is probably one of the most complicated glass objects that I’ve ever made. Starting with organic materials paired with artificial flowers and dipped in plaster to make a vase, the original form was 3D scanned and then 3D printed. The delicacy of the form made casting an incredible challenge for my friend and master glass artist, David Willis who I’ve made a number of glass works with over the past 20 years."
Works like this have to be experienced in space, which offers artist and viewer an opportunity to think about the relationship between both - and to the piece itself. What attracts you as an artist to this kind of connection? "Art’s function, purpose, necessity, usefulness, is to provide connection, and offer reflection, articulating materials to speak language that awaits the set of eyes that the work longs for, is made for, so the expression can be received. The art waits for that one set of eyes. This hopeful consideration blossoms in art."
"The artwork is an invitation and an opportunity for connection. It was conceived as a meditation and a celebration to honor the spectrum of beauty we share, and the possibilities relationships invite—with gratitude for all who’ve joined forces to generously impact lives in the most positive ways we can imagine."
The audience for art is growing yet one feels the response to art is lessening. Art such as yours, which seems to invite - rather than merely trigger - a response, requires thought and time. The opposite of Instagramming the art fair. How does this world sit with you? "The contemporary culture is one of consumption and disposability, rushing at an alarming velocity. Art doesn’t care how long it takes for the one who it’s meant for to arrive. So whatever is the current mode, I don’t believe people are less inclined to ponder and reflect when offered the opportunity, though it may not be what attracts everyone."
"Audience is self-selecting always and one’s personal habits, distractions, interests, fascinations, passions, etc regardless of how encompassing they are don’t necessarily automatically exclude experiences of art. I think people are more complicated and dynamic than what the current culture suggests. That being said, a disciplined thoughtful life is one that’s worked on, and art always gives us the opportunity to slow down, think and enjoy. Art offers the ‘real thing’ and brings a wildness - even subtly so - to situations. In that energized, and even vulnerable state, magic can happen."
Are you aware when inspiration strikes? How would you describe the feeling, and can you take us through how it hit and led you to this piece? "I’m inspired in layers and in varied temporal rhythms. I’m a note taker, gatherer, reader, watcher, looker, listener with lots of curiosity and many questions. Occasions, like being asked to make a work for the last TWO x TWO for AIDS Auction, sparked thoughts and from that space of pondering and imagination these forms and materials and now words come together, with gratitude for all who’ve joined forces to generously impact lives in the most positive ways we can imagine."
Take a closer look at with you, 2024 here.
TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art is an annual contemporary art auction held in the Richard Meier-designed Rachofsky House in Dallas, benefiting two organizations—the Dallas Museum of Art and amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Thanks to the phenomenal support of the dealer and artist community, corporate sponsors, and Dallas patrons, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art’s annual benefit gala dinner and art auction has raised over $120 million in its 24-year history in support of amfAR’s AIDS research initiatives and the DMA’s contemporary art acquisition program. Visit twoxtwo.org to learn more.
