Rochelle Feinstein: Make It Behave / James Richards and Leslie Thornton: Abyss Film

Rochelle Feinstein: Make It Behave
Make It Behave will be the first major retrospective of the work of the New York artist Rochelle Feinstein (*1947). The exhibition was developed in cooperation with the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich and will be presented in 2018 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York. It brings together paintings and series of works from the past three decades.

As the title of a work and the exhibition, Make It Behave illustrates the crucial role of language and its normative use in Feinstein’s painting. 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?

With The Estate of Rochelle F. the artist created her own posthumous estate between 2009 and 2010. Inspired by the financial crisis in 2009, Feinstein decided to work exclusively with existing materials. She compiled her own works, everyday objects, and gifts that she once received into a new series. Texts and drawings in the form of journal entries augment the work. By translating the economic collapse into her own activities, Feinstein poses questions about impermanence as well as her own artistic surplus.

Ambiguity and humor accompany Feinstein’s artistic approach. Based on autobiographical experiences, she 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 exhibition at the Kestner Gesellschaft is supported by the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung and the Förderkreis + Kunstkomm.

Curator: Christina Végh, Assistant curator: Elmas Senol

James Richards and Leslie Thornton: Abyss Film
With Abyss Film, the Kestner Gesellschaft will be presenting a traveling exhibition by the British artist James Richards (*1983 Cardiff, UK) in collaboration with Bergen Kunsthall and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. At the Kestner Gesellschaft the show will be augmented by a collaborative project with the American avant-garde filmmaker Leslie Thornton (*1951 Knoxville, Tennessee, US). These two important video artists from different generations share similar artistic methods: they use found and self-produced images to create affective and intimate collages.

In his works, which also include sound installations and music, James Richards points to poetic and structural connections between found and self-produced media. He creates collages of online videos, artists’ films, intimate home videos, archival footage, obscure television clips, internet streams, and used VHS tapes. His film Rosebud (2013) earned him a nomination for the renowned Turner Prize in 2014.

The central work of the exhibition is the sound installation Crumb Mahogany (2016). It consists of a variety of sounds, such as a siren, choral music, and the sound of paper being ripped. The spatialization of the sound collage with six speakers positioned in a circle physically confronts the visitors with harmonies and disharmonies.

Leslie Thornton understands media as bearers of ideology. The production process encodes the complex relationships between the viewer and the producer. Thornton’s films, by contrast, reveal an openness and transparency that results from the artist’s involvement in the film. Often she comments on events or speaks about the camerawork during the filming. Her films thus show the logical consistency of their formal qualities and become scenes of exposed perception.

James Richards first encountered Leslie Thornton’s films as a student. The work Crossing is the result of their collaboration. The film was created in an intensive dialogue between the two artists and will be shown for the first time in Germany.

The exhibition James Richards and Leslie Thornton: Abyss Film is supported by the NORD/LB Kulturstiftung and the Förderkreis + Kunstkomm.

Curator: Christina Végh, Assistant curator: Milan Ther