TEST

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN :

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PIO THOMPSON INTERVIEW AT THE ANDERSON COLLECTION (REMOVE THIS WHITE PART)

:REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN : What are the differences between approaching an object that is a “true” sculpture
MELISSA CHEN
GOLDSTEIN or painting, as opposed to a piece like Murray’s Chain Gang, which seems to disrupt
such medium specificity, as a combination of both?

: [Reflecting on her own experience] Working between two mediums has given me

an appreciation for what both can do. I love that painting doesn’t have to abide by the
laws of gravity, but creating sculptures has made me more sensitive to basics, like
shadow and space. So now, looking at Murray’s work, a combination of both, I think
about how she is dealing with gravity, perspective, and space.

I love this edge of hers, to the lower left, and how she’s left it unpainted, letting
the work be a painting instead of a fully‐painted object. You can see the wooden
back, making it almost a theatre set or a prop piece.

…

: You seem to make use of the hand drawn line to give the work structure. What

makes a structure work?

: A sense of precariousness. I think that comes from the hand drawn line. For my own

work, it tends to be a weird sense of balance where it seems like the structure is
about to fall apart or about to come together. And that’s what Diebenkorn is doing in
Ocean Park #60, his lines give the painting a sense of architecture. What would this
painting be without those lines? Nothingness?

Look how he managed to leave gesso showing on the side and at the top. He
uses his awareness of how the image is dealing with the edges and his instinct to

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(REMOVE THIS WHITE PART) ARIEL KAUFMAN keep the canvas from getting too built up. That white is what’s giving this painting
GOLDSTEIN room to breathe. When you stand back, even though the colored sections are the
biggest part of the painting, that strip of canvas is what comes forward. If the paint-
MITZI HARRIS ing didn’t have that, it would fall flat.
GOLDSTEIN
…
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: When you say something works or doesn’t, what does that mean?

: For me, what works is when there is the right amount of wrong, something that jars

it slightly. For example, look how tonally related Ocean Park is, and how the lines

:at the top move the eye up. I love how the blues and the greens get muted but not

muddy, and when you squint there is a sense of light.

…

: When you start a painting, do you make a conscious decision that it will be abstract?

: I always approach my paintings thinking they will be figurative, and I’m always

surprised when they end up more abstract than I intended. I start by putting down
washes of color, and as I’m working some image takes hold. Eventually, though, I
have to let go of the initial imagery to let the piece take on its own life form.

I try to push myself not to be attached to the parts that I like. There's always a
‘best part’ of a painting, and that's the part that has to go. It ruins everything else
because I end up painting around it, making the work look precious and tentative. It’s
only when I paint out the best thing that the painting gets some guts. I always like to
have a sense of ruthlessness when I paint; like playing a game of chicken with myself,
daring myself to do what’s really uncomfortable.

:

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POLLY C APPS the Murray pieces; it is no surprise that her
own work is dominated by planes of white.
THE PURPOSE OF BLANKNESS: Suddenly, after considering Goldstein’s
GOLDSTEIN’S USE OF WHITE SPACE thoughts on Mouse Cup, her sculpture Coral
Angles (2018) seems to foreground the
Rebekah Goldstein, "Coral Angles" Pointing out the edge of white and black bright inner triangles of white wall outlined in
in Ellsworth Kelly’s Black Ripe (1955) was painted wood, rather than the peach accents
20 worthy of a cross-gallery trip for Rebekah of its name. The delicate, airy structure now
Goldstein. One of the first things she seems to serve as a frame for the section of
discussed in front of Elizabeth Murray’s wall seen through it, negative space which
Mouse Cup (1981–1982) was the utilization becomes visually positive. Yet, Goldstein’s
of the white wall behind the work. In both, sculptures cannot incorporate the wall in a
Goldstein references tension, a kind of constant manner. As an object in the round,
“pushing and pulling up,” first with the when viewed in the gallery context, the
pulsating black form in the Kelly, and then in empty space may involve bodies, clothing,
the whimsically shaped Murray. In one, the other works, and bits of the floor or ceiling.
white spaces of the painted canvas fall back Unlike the Kelly and Murray pieces, which
to become one with the wall behind; and in lay flat on the wall, Goldstein’s use of white
the other the wall comes forward to become space is dynamic yet still full of tension, the
positive space, a part of the painted image. area enclosed by the sculpture switching
from negative space to positive space as the
Goldstein instantly noticed the duality viewer walks around it.
and versatility of white space in the Kelly and
When thinking two-dimensionally,
Goldstein points to Richard Diebenkorn’s
use of the gessoed canvas as the source of
white space in Ocean Park #60 (1973). She
references the strips of unpainted canvas on

the top and right edges as “resting spaces,” CAPPS
and as elements which allow the painting
“to breathe.” In the wide blue-green expanse P O L LY
of the Diebenkorn, the thin white edges
Rebekah Goldstein, “High Kicks" were what drew Goldstein’s attention. In her
opinion, the touches of blank whiteness are
what allow the color to remain constantly
refreshing, constantly surprising. In her own
paintings, Goldstein uses far more than
inch-wide edges of white, often leaving
the majority of her canvases covered in
white paint, but ultimately, the purpose
appears to be the same. In her works Last
Splash (2016) and High Kicks (2017), the
vibrant yellow, gold, purple, and blue shapes
hold their visual punch because of the
white environments surrounding them. In
traversing the canvases, the eye must pass
across these blank planes in order to reach
the next area of color, allowing the vision to
reset before approaching the next stroke of
pigment. Goldstein captures the role of white
space in her paintings with her description
of the Diebenkorn: her painted works truly
breathe, with each full inhale of saturated
color perfectly balanced by a cleansing
exhale of blank white.

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MELISSA CHEN always start off as figural. We can sense
an immediate kinship between the artists’
SEEING THROUGH THE EYES OF REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: bodies of work in the same way we might
LINE AND STRUCTURE understand two people to be relatives not
only from obvious traits such as identical
“What would this painting be without nose bridges or the same jut of their lips, but
these lines?” Rebekah Goldstein demands the similarity in expressions and mannerisms
of Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #60 that arises subconsciously as a result of a
(1973). “It would just be nothingness.” This long-lasting proximity. Indeed, Goldstein says
is true: imagining Ocean Park #60 without that she allows her subconscious to have its
the assortment of lines—all primary and way when she works, and she avoids heavy‐
secondary colors shooting across the frame handed or direct references to other artists.
—that work across the top and the right
edges of the canvas produces a muddled Both Goldstein and Diebenkorn’s
painting deprived of energy, emotion, and paintings gently corral areas of gestural
even the quality of being a finished work. painting between hard lines. These generally
As I take on Goldstein’s perspective, the pale swaths of color indicate the artist’s
architecture of Diebenkorn’s painting grips sweeping arm pulling the brush across
me. Almost like the marble block before the canvas, yet abruptly stopping or being
the sculpture is carved out of it, the canvas painted over with staunch edges. Goldstein
becomes an object that must be broken puts a particular emphasis on the hand‐
apart to reveal the artist’s hidden creation. drawn line and asserts that a taped line sits
wrong with her. She does not elaborate,
It makes sense that Diebenkorn’s later but I imagine that she thinks that the taped
work, located between abstraction and line has an irksome rigidity that prevents a
depiction, should appeal to Goldstein, proper visual flow. My Goldstein‐calibrated
who says that her own abstract paintings eye finds structural dynamism in the two
artists’ paintings. In Goldstein’s words,
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a painting is successful if its structure is CHEN
precarious, if there is a “sense of balance
where it seems like the structure is about to MELISSA
fall apart or about to come together.” This
Rebekah Goldstein, “Everyone but You,” oil and acrylic on canvas, 2016 philosophy rings true in Ocean Park #60. The
disproportionately distributed weight creates
airiness, much as Goldstein does in her own
work. Everyone but You (2016), for example,
snaps my gaze diagonally across the canvas
and back using a composition that resembles
a toppling statue, a second away from
collapsing and shattering.

Goldstein’s attachment to line and using
it to prop up the structure of a painting
informs the appearance of her work. Though
imparting a first impression of geometric
shapes, Goldstein’s paintings contain no
closed traditional forms such as rectangles or
triangles. Instead they gently guide my eyes
along its lines all across the canvas, between
the broken-up sections that Goldstein
calls frames within frames. This sectioning
coupled with layers of color creates a world
we know to be flat that somehow inspires a
feeling of depth—a world that without her
deliberate and ruthless hand would plummet
straight into “nothingness.”

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ZHANPEI FANG Rebekah Goldstein loves the baggage that She points out the tonal harmony of one
comes with being a painter. Painting as piece, Ocean Park #60 (1973): in particular,
SOMETHING ELSE a tradition has existed through millennia, the way in which the blues and aquas are
and according to her, a painter has always muted yet not muddied, and how the yellow
20 primarily “dealt with surface and illusion.” and red lines crisscrossing the top of the
For her, “if you’re not comfortable with the canvas elevate the eye. Ocean Park #60
historical weight of painting, then it’s hard is gently colored with chalky, pastel blues;
to be a painter”; embracing art-historical Goldstein notes the layering of overlapping
precedent “is something that keeps me planes of color, and use of “painting out.”
going in the studio.” As a painter herself, she is able to infer that
“from a color mixing standpoint, [the] teals
One artist who has particularly informed were some of the first colors he put down.”
Goldstein’s studio practice is Richard According to Goldstein, “when you squint,
Diebenkorn (1922–1993). According to there is a really nice sense of light coming
Goldstein, “it’s more helpful to compare through the painting, and that’s from not
artists to their own work than to compare having overworked the underlayer.” The
artist‐to‐artist”—an approach she takes overall effect is of a tranquil, glowing canvas,
when considering Diebenkorn’s use of color with a sense of opening space, moody yet
in the Ocean Park series (1967–1988), relative bright.
to his earlier bodies of work. In her opinion,
Diebenkorn had not “figured out” color in Goldstein’s characterization of
his prior work, but this later-career series Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #60 can very well
demonstrates skilled, subtle use of color. be used to describe her own works. Her most
recent solo show, See You on the Flip Side
(2018), is built upon a unified color palette
which was explicitly inspired by Ocean Park,
as well as David Hockney’s swimming-pool
paintings. As with Diebenkorn’s abstract

works, Goldstein’s treatment of paint is built FA N G
upon a layered technique: “I start by putting
Rebekah Goldstein “See You on the Flip Side,” exhibition view of solo show at Cult Exhibitions, 2018 down washes of color, and as I’m working ZHANPEI
some image takes hold.” Her canvases
feature geometric zones of pigment, lightly
scrambled over colored ground. They
demonstrate an interest in the way that
color creates space: through faint blues
and greens, corn-silk yellows, pastel tones
hanging in tension against each other, all
illuminated with the same bright, cool light.

In their own ways, Diebenkorn and
Goldstein, both Bay Area natives, are trying
to make sense of what it means to be a
“Bay Area painter”. Both artists’ paintings
are quiet, meditative, and suffused with
luminosity. Their works draw inspiration
from the artists’ experience of the landscape,
and respond to distinct attributes of the
region—perhaps suggesting the sweeping
expanses of the Northern California coast,
or in Diebenkorn’s case, the Ocean Park
neighborhood of Santa Monica, with a
sense of openness that is characteristically
Californian. Separated across the decades,
Diebenkorn and Goldstein have arrived at
similar conclusions.

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PIO THOMPSON of the work. Chain Gang contains portions
of canvas that are cropped and attached to
PAINTING AND SCULPTURE INTERSECT: the rest of the work at angles, suggesting
EDGES IN REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN’S ARTWORK sculpture, but, as Goldstein notes, “she’s left
[the edges] unpainted so you can see the
Zhanpei Feng, “Rebekah Goldstein in front of Throughout her interview at Stanford’s painting falling off, and for me that’s such
Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #60 (1973)” Anderson Collection, Rebekah Goldstein a painterly move. I’m not going to paint all
talked repeatedly about the edges of various of the sides, I’m going to let it be a painting
20 canvases. In describing Black Ripe (1955) rather than this fully-painted object.” Having
by Ellsworth Kelly, for example, she drew our heard Goldstein’s compelling thoughts
attention to the abstract black shape painted on edges in these two works, I became
over the plain white canvas. “The black form interested in studying how edges play into
in the center plays with the edge of the Goldstein’s own paintings.
frame,” she reflected, “the white background
[…] falls back but it also is playing and In many of Rebekah Goldstein’s works
pushing and pulling against the black form on canvas, I find a similar tension between
in the center of this canvas.” Goldstein’s the edge of the piece and the form of the
meditations on the tension between the piece to what she locates in Ellsworth Kelly’s
edge of the canvas and the rest of the work Black Ripe. In All Because Of You (2018),
arose again later in the interview when she for example, Goldstein is working with an
described work by Elizabeth Murray. She unconventionally shaped canvas: an irregular
pointed to the edges in Murray’s piece Chain polygon. What surprises me about this piece
Gang (1985–86) as a place of intersection is how the paint both emphasizes and defies
between the painterly and sculptural aspects the form of the canvas. The thin black lines
to the upper and lower left, for example,
delineate the edge of the canvas, while the
light blue paint on the right likewise follows
its angles. In other areas, however, the lines

of black paint break the form of the canvas, THOMPSON
and the emerald green rectangle in the
center of the work runs against any natural PIO
edges of the canvas, creating a sense of
Rebekah Goldstein, “All Because of You,” oil on canvas, 2018 detachment or suspension. One section
of blue paint at the very top seems to be
peeling away from the edge of the canvas,
creating an interesting moment of tension
between the shape of the canvas and the
paint applied to it.

Some of Rebekah Goldstein’s works, like
those of Elizabeth Murray, employ the edge
to create ambiguity between the forms of
sculpture and painting. Navy Pattern Square
(2016), for example, is a three‐dimensional
sculpture, but the painted polygons—that
in many places cross the edges of the
piece—work to compress the form into two
dimensional space. Or, to borrow Goldstein’s
words, they make the work seem like “a
painting rather than a fully painted object.”
I find Goldstein’s sculptures interesting
because, departing from the many paintings
that conventionally use perspective to create
the illusion of three dimensionality, her
sculptures instead use edges to allude to
two dimensionality.

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