ART-PRESENTATION: Rochelle Feinstein-Make It Behave
Building on an extensive painting lexicon, Rochelle Feinstein employs an array of styles and media, such as silkscreen, photography and assemblage, hard-edged graphic compositions as well as expressionist factures. These combined manners and processes cross-reference the historical with the vernacular, the mythologies of the Avant-Garde, as well as popular culture. At once social commentary and autobiographical incidents, her work offers a biting reflection on the role of an artist working in the arena that is painting in America today.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Kestnergesellschaft Archive
Rochelle Feinstein’s solo exhibition “Make It Behave” at Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, brings together paintings and series of works from her 30 years of work, the title of the exhibition illustrates the crucial role of language and its normative use in Feinstein’s painting. Feinstein was a member of the visual arts faculty of Bennington College from 1980 through 1994. She is a professor of painting and printmaking at the School of Art, Yale University. She was one of the first females to be tenured at Yale University in the Visual Arts. Based on autobiographical experiences, Rochelle Feinstein demonstrates the absurdity of value systems that determine our daily life as well as politics and art history. With an astute gaze, Feinstein questions the formal repertoire of abstract painting as well as her own positioning as an artist and professor within the structures of artistic production and the art market. The work “Make It Behave” (1990) consists of the gesture of a single stroke of the paintbrush that forms a red square. Who is being told to behave here? What should a “proper” square look like? Inspired by the financial crisis in 2009, Feinstein decided to work exclusively with existing materials. “The Estate of Rochelle F” (2009) began during the economic cricis of 2009, when Feinstein surveyed her studio’s assets, counting among these older stretchers, unfinished paintings, unused art supplies, and an assortment of other resources. Feinstein ventured to optimize these assets’ value by recombining the materials into a new body of work. In making “The Estate of Rochelle F”: 1) would not spend any additional money on this work, 2) would use any and all supplies as “assets” and 3) would use maximal material and minimal gesture. By translating the economic collapse into her own activities, Feinstein poses questions about impermanence as well as her own artistic surplus.
Info: Curator: Christina Végh Assistant Curator: Elmas Senol, Kestnergesellschaft, Goseriede 11, Hanover, Duration: 3/12/16-5/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sum 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-20:00, https://kestnergesellschaft.de
