2009.55: A Diary of Flowers (every moment picture your heart)

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2009.55

People

Jim Hodges, American (Spokane, WA born 1957)

Title

A Diary of Flowers (every moment picture your heart)

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

1994

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/331619

Physical Descriptions

Medium

ink on paper napkins with pins in 51 parts

Dimensions

195.6 x 111.8 cm (77 x 44 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: On the back of napkin # 51: Jim Hodges 1994 A diary of flowers every moment (picture your heart) On the l.r. of plastic installation template: Jim Hodges A DIARY OF FLOWERS (PICTURE YOUR HEART) 1994
• inscription: On the back of napkin #10: flowers like clouds float by fill my eyes. look into the sun.
  On the back of napkin #15: stars
  On the back of napkin #29: we'll be coming home
  On the back of napkin #32: miracles
  On the back of napkin # 51: Jim Hodges 1994 A diary of flowers every moment (picture my heart) ink on napkins in 51 parts. For "not just my dealers, but my friends" all my love and thanks Jim 1994 77" x 44"
• inscription: Inscription on the plastic installation template: l.r. in blue marker: Jim Hodges A DIARY OF FLOWERS (PICTURE YOUR HEART) 1994 ink on paper napkins in 51 parts (with pins) 77" x 44" for Carla, Richard and Glenn wonderful pictures in my heart thank you "every moment" Love Jim 6-23-94
  
  Inscription on the u. r. in blue marker: This map is for approx. location exact duplication is neither intended or expected J. H. SAVE

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Jim Hodges, created 1994, gift; to [CRG Gallery, New York] (Carla Chammas, Richard Desroche, Glenn McMillan), sold as partial gift; to Harvard Art Museum, 2009.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund and courtesy of CRG Gallery

Accession Year

2009

Object Number

2009.55

Division

Modern and Contemporary Art

Contact

am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

An array of floral sketches on 51 napkins which are pinned to the wall when installed. The drawings are stored in an archival box inscribed with the artist's name and the title of the work. The work is accompanied by an installation template which is used for exact placement of the drawings during installation.

Commentary

Jim Hodges emerged in the 1990s as an exemplary artist of many of the concerns of that decade. His work is highly hand crafted and hand made, everywhere bearing the traces of its maker. This indexicality ran counter to the somewhat bloodless vogue for appropriation that had dominated the art of the 1980s. So too, Hodges's work, like that of many of his contemporaries, came of age in the midst of the AIDS crisis, that is in the middle of a desperate moment in which the art world lost literally thousands of its members to the devastating disease. Like many gay artists of the period Hodges was involved in activist work to help stop the crisis but his art work forged a new version of political art, one suffused with a sadness, melancholy, and loss, rather then propagandistic calls to action or iterations of anger and rage (all of which were justifiable). In this regard his work is very much in sympathy with that of Felix Gonzalez Torres, with whom he was friends.

The Diary of Flowers was an ongoing work of Hodges's. In a diaristic vein Hodges would draw flowers with a simple blue or black ball point pen on diner napkins every day. When the work began he was working in an unheated studio and would go to the diner or coffee shop not only to eat but also to warm up. He amassed literally hundreds of these drawings and began to assemble them in groups that were hung, delicately to the wall, one pin per napkin. The work was seen by Gonzalez Torres who, apparently, fell in love with it. Hodges gave a set of the drawings to FGT, who had them installed in his living space. When FGT died due to complications from HIV/AIDS Hodges decided to stop making the Diary of Flowers drawings.

The drawings are a touchstone for many of the ideas that Hodges would develop over the next 15 years. They are delicate and ephemeral, and as such resist the mandate of art to "last forever." Rather their fragility suggests the transient nature of life applies to art as well. They display his commitment to everyday materials, as he bestows upon them a kind of magical aura by transforming them into art. They are an early indication of Hodges' ongoing interest in the natural world. They are an indication of the sentiment and sentimentality that was to become a hallmark of Hodges's work. So too they are a strong indication of the then nascent return to drawing on the part of many artists of the 1990s. The rigor of their daily production channels much of the logic of conceptual art, and the everyday materials partakes in the avant-garde's claim to broker the difference between art and life, and yet they firmly hold onto their place as sentimental art rather than a structural exercise, suggesting that in the face of enormous human suffering and loss the realm of affect and the emotions had to find a voice in the production of culture.

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