Bob Dylan's first U.S. art exhibition, titled Retrospectrum, is now running at Florida International University. The university’s Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum features more than 120 of Dylan’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures spanning six decades. The exhibit includes 180 acrylics, watercolors, drawings and ironwork sculptures — along with interactive exhibits for fans. The show will be on view through April 17th, 2022.
Billboard reported, “Retrospectrum includes some of Dylan’s works from the 1960's, starting with pencil sketches he made of his songs such as 'Highway 61 Revisited' and 'Like A Rolling Stone.' His pieces, loaned from private collections around the world, also include abstract sketches from the 1970's, and covers six large rooms. But the vast majority was created in the past 15 years.”
Rolling Stone reported: “During the exhibit’s opening week, the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab, FIU’s humanities and arts hub, will present DYLAN@FIU, a symposium exploring Bob Dylan’s career and cultural influence, timed to coincide with Miami Art Week.”
Dylan's previous exhibition, The Drawn Blank Series, opened in 2007 in Chemnitz, Germany. Retrospectrum was initially created for its premiere showing in 2019 at Shanghai, China's Modern Art Museum.
Bob Dylan says he’s been around long enough to know how to weather both personal and creative dips and valleys: “I’ve come through good times and bad times, y’know? So, I’m not fooled by 'good times/bad times'; I’ve see the bottom, too. So, y’know, if you can work, y’know, that's the most. . . all you can ask. . . in this day and age, you can’t take that for granted. Just to work is. . . to be able to work is what a person should strive after.”
Bob Dylan performs tonight (November 30th) in Philadelphia at The Met.
He'll wrap his 2021 dates on December 2nd in Washington, D.C. at The Anthem.
