Viral Interest

Like most of us, Jim Dine went into self-isolation in March 2020 following the Covid-19 lockdown. Unlike most of us, he turned these three months into a crucible of creativity and has now recorded his experiences in book form. Dine quickly settled into a new daily rhythm: his studio in Montrouge became a living as well as a working space-"I spend my days in silence, painting and building"-which he would leave on his bike every afternoon for another space in Montparnasse, to write poems-"The intense silence of the street and my concentration sculpted the words in a direct way"-and to garden, tending to the plants that he arranges like a color palette, the roses and oleander, the succulents, tomatoes and corn. Alongside Dine's photos, from blurred self-portraits and cropped studio still lifes to foliage and clouds skimming the sky, are text fragments he took from the daily newspapers: "we are racing against trigger / once there was light / sick and dying African Americans / there is hope." The idea that Dine document this time in photos and appropriated text came unexpectedly from a conversation with his printer and publisher Gerhard Steidl; Viral Interest is as much about their exchange as it is a document of confinement: haphazard and lyrical, compellingly contradictory.