NOVEMBER 11 – DECEMBER 31, 2020

SOCO Gallery is thrilled to present an exhibition of new work by artists Jackie Gendel and Adrianne Rubenstein. This will be Gendel’s second exhibition with the gallery, and Rubenstein’s first.

The exhibition is planned in conjunction with Tif Sigfrids, a contemporary art gallery based in Athens, Georgia. Works by Gendel and Rubenstein will be on view in both locations in an inaugural partnership of the two galleries. The exhibition includes works on canvas and on paper.

Gendel’s recent work furthers a neo-modernist motif as a means of constructing a fiction between fragmented figure and crowd, women becoming architecture and automatons becoming bodies of unfixed age, time, location and gender. Gendel pushes the viewer to contemplate the relationships between them, highlighting the movement of her often female subjects through abstracted form. In one work featuring a large crowd of overlapping women, muted colors connect the figures, while specific details call attention to their various personas. Seen frequently in composite and profile views, Gendel’s figures challenge the cohesion of self and sociability. They appear caught in a history that may or may not exist. Gendel’s work challenges viewers to come to terms with a scene that may feel at once unfamiliar and yet recognizable. 

In a similar manner, Rubenstein’s work also evokes art historical references with its likening to Expressionism. Rubenstein distorts the familiar, painting scenes that challenge one’s understanding of the everyday. Through an intuitive process, Rubenstein repeatedly arrives at imagery that can make a head of Broccoli seem archetypal in its nature. In a recent Artforum review, Barry Schwabsky noted that "the faint resemblance her forms have to their original sources of inspiration may in itself be best testimony to the inner image's staying power, free association means more than resemblance." The paintings, when coupled with their titles,  consistently reveal a dry wit that may subvert their almost childish emotional ebullience.  Like any good joke, however, there is always a kernel of sincerity buried deep within the layers of every painting. 

Jackie Gendel (Houston, TX, B. 1973)

Jackie Gendel received her BA from Washington University, St. Louis in 1996 and her MFA from Yale University in 1998. Since 2000, she has participated in numerous group shows and solo exhibitions including Thomas Erben, New York (2019, 2016), Pratt Manhattan Gallery (2017), Jeff Bailey, New York (2013, 2012, 2010, 2006), Loyal Gallery, Malmö (2012), Moti Hasson, New York (2008), and Mixture Contemporary Art, Houston (2004, 2002). Reviews of her work have appeared in Modern Painters, Artforum, The New York Times, Art in America, The New Yorker, Art Papers, and Hyperallergic, among others. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded Gendel an Academy Award in 2007. She participated in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program in 2010, and was an artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony in 2005. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Adrianne Rubenstein (Montreal, B. 1983)

Adrianne Rubenstein (b. 1983)  received her BFA in 2006 from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and in 2011, her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Recent solo exhibitions include Deli Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Tif Sigfrids, Athens, GA; and The Journal, New York, NY. Her work has been featured in several group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, and Rubenstein has also served as curator for numerous shows. Her work has been featured in Artforum and The New York Times. Rubenstein currently works and lives in New York, NY.