NinaJohnson

Rochelle Feinstein (b. 1947 in Bronx, New York) is engaged in the exploration of painting —particularly abstract painting. In paintings, prints, videos, sculptures, and installations produced since the 1980s, she has sought ways of expressing issues related to contemporary social conditions as well as painting. The works presented in the exhibition “The Today Show” examine in a variety of ways how the real world appears in painting: “The Today Show” is also the name of an American infotainment morning program on NBC where celebrities are presented alongside news in an ostensibly enjoyable but ultimately superficial format. “The Today Show”, however, does not attempt to sum up what is happening. Rather, Feinstein’s exhibition unites two different experiences: everyday experience, which can be shared, and the experience of abstract painting.

In her painting practice, Rochelle Feinstein works with existing everyday references and existing forms of abstract painting. Idealized as an expression of a democratic, free world, abstract painting has played a prominent role in American art history since the 1950s. Feinstein consciously seeks to engage with this painterly tradition by questioning its gestures. In Feinstein’s view, painterly gestures must first be invested with meaning—they have by themselves no inherent values, attitudes, or meanings.

Repeatedly appearing in the paintings and installations on view in “The Today Show” are the seven colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Feinstein has mainly worked with these colors since 2016. They show up on the screen-printed paintings and suspended canvases, they cover laminated surfaces, they recur on mobiles made of Polaroids. The visual convention behind this color combination conveys hope, diversity, freedom. Feinstein makes their everyday use visible and questions the thematic references and affinities of the rainbow.

Feinstein’s painting practice is therefore a work in the vocabulary of painting—not simply with it. Highlighting this important distinction allows her painting to be described as non- hierarchical objects. Even though her project assumes innumerable forms, incorporates political commentary, and addresses the ever-shifting guises of everyday culture today, painting remains the focus.

at Kunsthaus Glarus
until June 22, 2025

Read the article online on Mousse Magazine.