Roni Feinstein

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Introducing Mila Gokhman

October 24, 2020 By Roni Feinstein

mila gokhman

During the period of COVID-19, I have devoted myself to trying to get the word out about the fantastic, technically innovative work of an entirely unknown, 86-year-old artist I first encountered in October of 2019. At that time, I was asked by the Jewish Federation and Family Services of Orange County to help organize a one-night-only exhibition of work by Holocaust survivors in our area. I met a number of wonderful individuals with fascinating stories, some of whom made terrific art. However, when I entered Mila Gokhman’s tiny, one bedroom apartment, it literally rocked my world. The apartment held a treasure trove of museum-quality art and design dating back almost fifty years. Golden Rain (or Manna from Heaven to the Suffering … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles Tagged With: leather reliefs, Michele Mattei, Mila Gokhman, Ukrainian art

Sublime Poetry: Vija Celmins at SFMOMA

January 11, 2019 By Roni Feinstein

Vija Celmins SFMOMA

The exhibition Vija Celmins: To Fix the Image in Memory at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a privilege to behold. It is not only the images, but the retrospective itself that becomes fixed in memory as a lived experience. Celmin's work offers an encounter with nature, the universe, and ultimately the self. It casts the viewer in the role of the figure in Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea, who is enraptured by the sublime vastness of the cosmos. As my one-time professor, the late, great Robert Rosenblum suggested, Friedrich's painting and evocations of the Sublime were translated into abstract terms by Mark Rothko in large-scale paintings that envelop the viewer in a colored, luminous "nothingness." Celmins returns us … [Read more...]

Filed Under: San Francisco, Uncategorized Tagged With: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA, To Fix the Image in Memory, Vija Celmins

Ai Weiwei in L.A.

October 9, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

ai weiwei in l.a.

Having had dinner last night with some friends and seeking, but not finding, a single article to send them this morning that succinctly summed up the artist, his career and international stature, his current L.A. exhibitions, and why I am gaga about both the man and his art, I am writing what follows. Ai Weiwei is the son of a famed Chinese poet who was exiled to China's northern provinces during the Cultural Revolution, where he was humiliated and subjected to forced labor. At age 19, after Mao's death, Ai and his family returned to Beijing, where he attended the Beijing Film Academy. He then spent over a decade in the United States, where he studied a bit, took photographs, absorbed the current American art scene, and experienced … [Read more...]

Filed Under: China, Los Angeles, Uncategorized Tagged With: Ai Weiwei, China, Chinese art, contemporary art Beijing, Jeffrey Deitch, L.A., Los Angeles, Marciano Artr Foundation, Roni Feinstein, UTA Artist Space

dOGUMENTA LA

September 19, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

Feinstein dogumenta

If Clover, my 14-year-old Beagle had not eaten a bag of Milano cookies the night before, she and my white Golden Retriever, Breeze, would have come to a curator-led tour of dOGUMENTA, America's first art show for canines, held in Downtown L.A. As it was, Wesley, my Granddog, joined me and a small group from ArtTable in a walk-through led by Mica Scanlin and Jessica Dawson, who also curated its first iteration in New York last year. (Rocky, Dawson's Maltese-Yorkie mix, the third member of the curatorial team, was busy elsewhere). Interactive artwork in a wide range of media by 10 artists, most of them local, were presented.   As an art historian, I have long acknowledged that my critical judgement tends to be suspended and is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles, Uncategorized Tagged With: art show for dogs, dog art, dOGUMENTA, Los Angeles, Roni Feinstein

Malcolm Morley at MOCA, N. MIAMI, 2006

August 3, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

Malcolm Morley

As a tribute to the British-American painter Malcolm Morley, who died in New York City on June 1, 2018, I have resurrected a review I wrote of Malcolm Morley: The Art of Painting, a retrospective exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, January 20-April 16, 2006.  The review, which until now has remained unpublished, was written for The Wall Street Journal.  The images reproduced with this post are akin to, but not necessarily the same works featured in the show. Malcolm Morley at MOCA Malcolm Morley emerged in the late 1960s as a prominent member of the group of artists known as Superrealists who made paintings based upon photographic sources. Then, for the better part of the next 30 years, his art veered off in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Miami, Uncategorized Tagged With: Bonnie Clearwater, Malcolm Morley, MOCA North Miami, Superrealism

A Short Note on Art Basel 2018

July 5, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

Neudecker Art Basel

Having attended Art Basel Miami Beach on a number of occasions (I covered the fair for many years for Art in America and other publications) and having traveled to Art Basel Hong Kong 2017, I was eager to finally visit the mother-ship in Basel, which I did in early June. I only spent a total of about 6 hours at the fair, which means I saw a bit less than half, but I was left with many strong impressions. Before sharing a few of my thought and highlights, I must note that although I was in attendance on the preview day of Art Basel 2018 with a "First Choice VIP" pass, the size of the crowd went far beyond anything I had experienced on equivalent days at the previous fairs. That the dealers and other gallery staff working the fair had five … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abroad, Art Fair, Uncategorized Tagged With: Art Basel, Doug Aitken, Heidi Bucher, London, Mariele Neudecker, Pedro Cera, The Approach

Mary Heilmann: Work of Casual Genius

June 28, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

Mary Heilmann Hauser + Wirth

About 15 years ago, a cousin who collects contemporary abstract painting sent me an image of a work by Mary Heilmann and asked what I thought. At the time, not having seen her work in person and being unaware of the subtleties of her execution (which, in my defense, are often not visible in reproductions), I replied, "It doesn't knock my socks off." Apologies all round!!   A fine opportunity to view her work is found at Hauser + Wirth, Los Angeles, in Mary Heilmann: Memory Remix, the artist's first show in this city in over 20 years (it continues through September 23rd). It consists of paintings and ceramics that span her career as well as a table and chairs dating to the last decade. Heilmann, who was born and raised in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles, Uncategorized Tagged With: Hauser + Wirth, Mary Heilmann

Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris

June 27, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

Louis Vuitton Foundation

Having run late for our set-time appointment at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, we took a taxi and entered through a security checkpoint cubical so that Frank Gehry's spectacular building, made up of 12 huge curving sails of glass, revealed itself to us slowly from the museum's interior, an experience I would expect few people have. As we moved through the space, the building unfolded from the inside to the outside with increasing urgency, yielding to soaring views of its own structure and eventually giving way to a multi-level series of outdoor terraces with views of the surrounding park, the Bois de Boulogne, and Paris beyond. The fabulously complex, intricately designed structure of curving glass panels, wooden breams, and metal … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abroad, Paris, Uncategorized Tagged With: Frank Gehry, Louis Vuitton Foundation

Birds of a Feather/Beall Center Exhibition

March 28, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

Lynn Aldrich Beall Center

At this time of political turmoil, It Passes Like a Thought comes as a breath of fresh air. Focused on seven artists who employ avian imagery and themes, the title of the exhibition derives from a John James Audubon quotation that states, "When an individual [bird] is seen gliding through the woods and close to the observer, it passes like a thought..." Presented at the Beall Center for Art + Technology at the University of California, Irvine, and curated by Artistic Director, David Familian, the show offers works in a wide range of media that variously investigate avian flight, language (birdsongs, calls, and the ability to mimic human speech), habitats, and diversity, as well as issues of endangerment and extinction. As a center for art … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles, Uncategorized Tagged With: Beall Center, Beall Center for Art _+ Technology, David Familian, It Passes Like a Thought, Juan Fontanive, Roni Feinstein, UC Irvine

Sao Paulo Surprise

January 18, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

MASP

During a few days in Sao Paulo, I went to several museums and about a dozen far-flung galleries. Each had something to recommend it, whether the art or exhibition on view or the architecture or physical lay-out of the space, but nothing I saw or experienced surprised or captivated me as much as what I saw at MASP.   MASP, the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, is a private, nonprofit museum founded by Brazilian businessman Assis Chateaubriand in 1947. Originally located elsewhere, it moved in 1968 into a Modernist structure designed by Italian-born Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi on Avenida Paulista, a busy shopping and business thoroughfare. The museum occupies a glass-walled rectangular box that is suspended high above the street … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Brazil, Latin American Art, Uncategorized Tagged With: Galeria Millan, Hammer Museum, Latin American Art, Luciana Brito Gallery, MASP, Radical Women, Roni Feinstein, Vermelho Gallery

Inhotim=Paradise*

January 9, 2018 By Roni Feinstein

I wept from joy 3 times during my 2 1/2 days at Inhotim. The first was in the gallery that houses Canadian artist Janet Cardiff's Forty Part Motet (2001). The piece consists of 40 speakers on stands that encircle an otherwise empty, large, white-walled space. A single horizontal window cut into one wall affords views of the abundant foliage outside. From each speaker comes the voice of one of 40 singers performing the sixteenth-century choral piece Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis. Although I have experienced this work before and have always been deeply affected by the tapestry of voices raised in sacred song, the rays of light streaming through the window and the slice of Eden glimpsed just beyond made immersion in the piece even more … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abroad, Brazil, Uncategorized Tagged With: Brazilian art, Inhotim, Roni Feinstein

Arshile Gorky: The Man and his Art

December 26, 2017 By Roni Feinstein

Among the recent initiatives of the Arshile Gorky Foundation have been two endeavors that have shed light on Gorky's personal and artistic legacy. One is the exhibition Ardent Nature: Arshile Gorky Landscapes, 1943-47, recently on view at Hauser + Wirth on 69th Street, New York. It offered a breathtaking array of works produced by the artist at the height of his powers, the time when he liberated himself from his earlier sources to create an art--a world--wholly his own. Curated by Saskia Spender, one of the artist's granddaughters and head of the Foundation, it consisted of 30 paintings and drawing drawn from museums and private collections. The other is the 2011 documentary film Without Gorky, written and directed by his other … [Read more...]

Filed Under: New York, Uncategorized Tagged With: Arshile Gorky, Hauser + Wirth, Without Gorky

SUPERFLEX: Flooded McDonald’s at the Hammer

September 28, 2017 By Roni Feinstein

Flooded McDonald's

While the trailblazing exhibition Radical Women is a must see at L.A.'s Hammer Museum (and will be the subject of a later post), concurrently on view and of contemporary relevance is the 2009 film Flooded McDonald's, situated in a small plaza gallery. The 21-minute film was made by the artist collective SUPERFLEX, which was founded in Copenhagen in 1993, but is now based in Denmark, Sweden, and Brazil. The group's mission is to explore systems of power, global capitalism and trade, community relations, and more. I first became aware of the collective through their piece CopyLight/Factory (2008) in the Museum of Modern Art's Print/Out exhibition of 2012. Part of the group's ongoing "Supercopy Series," it consisted of computer and other … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles, Uncategorized Tagged With: Flooded Mc'Donald's, Hammer Museum, Roni Feinstein, SUPERFLEX

proyectosLA: A Model Fair

September 20, 2017 By Roni Feinstein

Amid the hubbub and bounty of the Getty Foundation's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative is proyectosLA, a two-month long commercial art fair of remarkable quality, taste, and inspiration, which is housed in a converted downtown warehouse. Near the entry, a collection of small rooms radiating off communal office space serve as booths for 19 galleries from throughout Latin American and the U.S. that present select works by Latin American artists. The remainder of the 20,000 sq. ft. space is occupied by the exhibition Here the border is you, which is comprised of fascinating and distinguished work drawn from the 19 galleries. They are installed so as to elicit dialogues among the established and emerging, multigenerational artists … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles, Uncategorized Tagged With: art fair, ArtTable Southern California, Getty Foundation, LA/LA, Latin American Art, Marta Minujin, Pacific Standard Time, proyectosLA, Roni Feinstein

Paul McCarthy WS at Hauser + Wirth L.A.

July 17, 2017 By Roni Feinstein

Paul McCarthy, WS, White Snow Dopey Dopey Head, 2013-2014.

Walt Disney's Snow White bends her head to perform fellatio on... No, wait... It is Dopey's head she has taken in her mouth and this is not Snow White, but White Snow, the lascivious doppelganger of the Disney princess with whom Paul McCarthy has been preoccupied since late 2008. Over the course of the past decade, McCarthy has repeatedly taken the beloved 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as subject, exploiting it in several different series of drawings, sculptures, installations, films, and more. Throughout, he has twisted and perverted the tale, subjecting it to intense psychosexual scrutiny as well as to the abject sensibility that has long characterized his art. Also playing major roles are dark humor, art history, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Los Angeles Tagged With: Hauser + Wirth, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, White Snow

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