Rochelle Feinstein: Who Cares

About

Politics and questions of the contemporary world are the raw materials from which Rochelle Feinstein constructs her work. Feinstein deploys practical forms - the color wheel, a heart, timelines, calendars - to give shape to the complicated emotions and conditions of our present moment.

A number of brightly-colored works, such as Color Therapy and Off Color, rework and dismantle the color spectrum, suggesting a rethink of color, or the color divide, as it plays out in the broader cultural dialogue. Who Cares similarly begins with resolute use of color, material, and gesture. In this triptych, an original painting has rendered a reproduction of a second work, and lastly, another in black-and-white. Existing conditions are changing in all of these works, and Feinstein’s persistent remark follows, “Who cares,” which, devoid of punctuation, neither offers a declaration nor invites response.

A haze of grays envelops a number of works, proposing a darker, murkier reality. A calendar of X’s marks a particularly difficult and beguiling week of U.S. politics in December 2016. In H(e)art Island, a heart is stitched to canvas and leans on its side, alluding to New York City’s potter’s field - a very corporeal example of our desire to bury the anguish of the unknown from public view.

The gallery space will be divided by an installation, Ear to the Ground, made from fabric curtains imprinted with text. Words are scripted in Feinstein’s handwriting, an accumulation of colloquial expressions, marketing copy, off-hand utterances, and catch phrases collected by the artist over a number of years.

Feinstein’s paintings advocate for a deep engagement with the world, despite its frustrations, disappointments and never-ending conflicts. Feinstein’s unrelentingly critical eye is accompanied by a keen sense of humor and optimism, suggesting that the personal account of the historical is imperative and prescient as ever.

Feinstein’s work will be the subject of a major retrospective at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York in early 2018. Preceding surveys were exhibited at Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva (2016); Lenbachhaus, Munich (2016); and Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2017). Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich (2016); On Stellar Rays, New York (2014/2013/2011); Gallery Diet, Miami (2014); Higher Pictures, New York (2013); Art Production Fund, New York (2009); and Momenta Art, Brooklyn (2008). Feinstein was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Other recent and forthcoming group exhibitions include the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2017); Jablonka Jaruani Mercier Gallery, Brussels (2017); Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester (2016); Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich (2016); Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York (2016); Green Gallery, Milwaukee (2015). Recent awards and grants include a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, Anonymous Was a Woman grant, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, a Rockefeller Foundation/Bellagio Artist Residency, and a Foundation for Contemporary Art grant. Feinstein lives and works in New York City, NY.