Rachel Feinstein’s Folly is the latest project to occupy space in Madison Square Park in New York. It is a kind of homage to the pleasures of Old Master drawings, as though Feinstein had taken the fantastical imaginings that her predecessors might have put down on paper and turned them into real garden ornaments. I am reminded of Alessandro Magnasco and Salvator Rosa and Piranesi–but also a touch of Dr. Seuss.
Parks have often been designed around memories of landscapes from a past Golden Age, ranging from the garden of Eden to the gardens of England that Madison Square Park evokes. Feinstein’s objects similarly visit the past while remaining in the present: If you look at the backs of her follies, there’s structural steel that recalls sculptures by de Suvero and Stella. Looking at their fronts, you sense that it took the latest in computer design to realize their enlarged, 3D retrospection. (Photo by James Ewing)
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