Three Red Spanish Venuses

The Venus series reflects Dine's sustained engagement since the 1970s with an older artistic tradition, and in particular his deep interest in antiquity, equally evident in a series of drawings after ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in museum collections, which he began in the mid-1980s. While his multiple variations on the Venus de Milo inevitably evoke the endless reproduction, commodification, and kitsch debasement that the iconic sculpture has been subjected to since its recovery from the isle of Melos in 1820, this is ultimately more a background to the artist's project than its focus. By decapitating and otherwise altering its famous armless, partially draped form, Dine transforms the Venus de Milo into a less specific and more universal, archetypal figure. Moreover, however much he repeats the motif, no two of his Venuses are identical. Although the three figures in Three Red Spanish Venuses at first appear to be indistinguishable, closer examination reveals subtle differences between the cubistically rendered bodies. Specially commissioned for one of the soaring atriums of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao's Frank Gehry building, this imposing group loosely evokes such art-historical themes as the Judgment of Paris and the Three Graces.