“The Jewish Museum presents Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone, the first survey of the New York-based artist in the United States. The exhibition includes three decades of Feinstein’s work in sculpture, painting, and video, as well as a panoramic wallpaper, a major new commission, and the artist’s maquettes for sculpture. Taken together, the works emphasize the artist’s fascination with dualities: her investigations of masculinity and femininity or good and evil echo her formal explorations of balance and precariousness or positive and negative space. Feinstein’s art follows myriad lines of inquiry, but the idea of the feminine is central. She has made a sustained examination of the many ways this concept is manifested culturally. Female protagonists and figures proliferate in her work and bind it together across diverse media. 

The exhibition’s title, Maiden, Mother, Crone, names three consequential stages in a woman’s life, a progression from youth to old age that also signals her accumulation of knowledge and complexity. With the title, Feinstein is thinking of the neopagan deity the Triple Goddess — a simultaneous embodiment of maiden, mother, and crone — in whom past and present, inexperience and wisdom, fragility and power are inextricably entwined.” — The Jewish Museum

Rachel Feinstein. Icicles, 2018. Polyester resin and pigment over foam with wooden base. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Allison and Larry Berg. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein; photograph by Jeff McLane

Rachel Feinstein. Adam and Eve, 2007. Stained wood. Collection of Mima and César Reyes, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein; photograph by Marcus Leith

Rachel Feinstein. Mr. Time, 2015. Powder-coated aluminum, vinyl, and working clock. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein; photograph by Robert McKeever

Rachel Feinstein. Satyrs, 2008. Polymer resin, nylon fabric, and polyester filling. Collection of Julie and Larry Bernstein. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein

Rachel Feinstein. The Bleeding Shepherdess, 2014. Polymer resin and pigment. Collection of Mima and César Reyes, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein; photograph by Robert McKeever, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Rachel Feinstein. The Shack, 2001. Wood, cedar shingles, wire, polymer resin, nylon fabric, mirror, gold leaf, and enamel paint. Frank Cohen Collection. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein; photograph courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

Rachel Feinstein. St. Michael, 2012. Polymer resin, steel, wire, and wood. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery. Artwork © Rachel Feinstein; photograph by Giorgio Benni

Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone is organized by Kelly Taxter, Barnett and Annalee Newman Curator of Contemporary Art, The Jewish Museum.

Images courtesy The Jewish Museum.