When Rachel Feinstein thinks of her old life, she thinks of a “dark fairy tale.” There’s the heavy sway of the banyan trees on Old Cutler Road. Alligator-infested swimming holes. A towering king cobra statue advertising a tragic tourist attraction. Bridesmaids in frilly dresses at her Parrot Jungle wedding. And her parents’ house in Coral Gables, now slated to be demolished. Feinstein, 53, made a name for herself as an artist by creating whimsical works in many ways inspired by a South Floridian childhood. The New York-based artist has collaborated with Marc Jacobs, exhibited her sculptures in Florence alongside Renaissance masters, been featured in major publications like Vogue and marked the last 30 years of her career with a solo show at New York’s Museum.
Her parents used to ask her when she’ll have a solo show in her beloved hometown of Miami, but for one reason or another, she never did. Until now. Recently, The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach opened “Rachel Feinstein: The Miami Years,” a solo exhibition of works spanning nearly three decades that thematically focus on Feinstein’s childhood in the fabulous yet seedy world of Miami in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
“It was a really amazing, lawless, fantastic time,” she said. “I could not have made any of this if I grew up anywhere else. I’m 100% certain of it.” As an artist who grew up in the Magic City, where nothing seems to last forever, let alone a few years, Feinstein examines architecture, luxury, gender, memory, nature, nostalgia and facade with theatrical sculptures and eccentric paintings. The show’s crown jewel: “Panorama of Miami,” a mishmash of iconic Miami hotels, attractions, waterways and spectacles, some of which are long gone, all painted on a 30-foot-long mirror. “The whole thing is not only a metaphor of my life never being like this again, but Miami as well,” she said. The “Miami Years” exhibition at the Bass comes at a particularly exciting moment in Feinstein’s career, said Chrissie Erpf, the senior gallery director at Gagosian, the prestigious global gallery that represents the artist. Feinstein’s bold, brave artworks, like her jarring and glamourous sculptures of Victoria Secret models, set her apart, Erpf said.
“Now to have this at The Bass in Miami is incredibly exciting,” Erpf said. “She’s getting a lot of attention, well deserved. She’s a powerhouse.” Her latest show is a loving homage to a version of Miami that simply doesn’t exist anymore. And, Feinstein said, it’s a joyous homecoming she wishes her parents got to see.
Like all great fairy tales, this one has a dark, magical forest. Visitors enter Feinstein’s show through a small hallway (or tunnel, or forest path) wallpapered in a pattern of deep green and black banyan trees the artist drew herself. She wanted to mimic the same intense feeling she got as a child underneath the banyan trees that lead to her parents’ house off Old Cutler Road. She remembered how odd it felt to see those mighty trees destroyed after Hurricane Andrew. “It was like my childhood was all gone,” she said. “Something can happen at any moment that changes everything.” Born in Arizona to a Jewish father and Catholic mother, Feinstein spent her formative years in Miami during a tumultuous yet carefree time. It was an era of “Miami Vice,” crime, all-night parties and social unrest. Miami was (and in some ways, still is) a deeply unserious place.
Feinstein, who was baptized in a church and sent to Hebrew school, appreciates the dichotomy of life down here. She’s a Gemini, after all. It wasn’t easy to find her calling. Her father was a dermatologist, her mother a nurse, her sister a veterinarian. But Feinstein didn’t mesh with STEM. Her parents wanted her to work for an advertising company, but to no avail. She tried working as a receptionist at a hospital, but a patient died on her first day, so that was a bust. In the meantime, Feinstein worked as a model, forging deep fashion world connections. A true Miami girl, she excitedly scrolled through her phone to find photos of herself modeling in the print pages of the Miami Herald. She even was on “Miami Vice” twice as an extra. Acting wasn’t her strong suit, so she had no lines.
She got her bachelors from Columbia University in 1993 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency that same year. She spent her adult years in New York City, and in the mid-’90s, she met her husband, fellow artist John Currin. In the hallway leading into the exhibition, music plays from a small, side gallery. Inside, a projector plays Feinstein and Currin’s wedding video. They were married on Valentine’s Day 1998 at the original Parrot Jungle, a quintessential Miami location. The rehearsal dinner was at The Venetian Pool with a performance by synchronized swimmers called The Sharkettes, she added.
The wedding itself was something of an art performance. Feinstein had her bridesmaids dressed as Stepford Wives, wearing brimmed hats and pastel dresses laced in frills. She smiled as she pointed out her grandmother’s car and her husband’s friends. “There’s so many people in this video that are not alive anymore. That’s what’s really incredible,” Feinstein said. “It’s the idea of nostalgia for a time of Miami that doesn’t exist at all anymore. None of this exists for me anymore, either,” she said. “Miami weirdly coincides with my youth as a wild place. Miami’s not that way anymore.”
While working on the show, museum curator James Voorhies told Feinstein that this particular room was well-suited for video art, she said. None of her own art films fit the show’s theme quite right, so she showed Voorhies the wedding video her friends made her as a gift. It was perfect.
Tribune News Service